Scottish Doctor, author, speaker, sceptic

What causes heart disease part 44

I’m going to try and draw some of the strands together at this point, in an attempt to provide some advice as to how to reduce the risk of CVD. Of course, there is massive overlap with other health issues. Smoking, for example, does not just cause CVD; it also causes lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and many other unpleasant things.

So, you could call this instalment of the blog: “How to remain healthier and live longer”. Here I am only going to focus on the big-ticket items, the things that have been shown to make a real difference to life expectancy. For example, even if you believe that statins are effective in reducing CVD risk, when you look at the clinical trial data – assuming you believe it, one hundred per-cent – the average increase in life expectancy is around four days, if you take a statin for five years1.

Which means that, if you start taking a statin aged fifty, and keep taking it religiously for thirty years, you could expect to live for an extra: 6 x 4 days = 24 days. Or a bit less than a month. You may think this is worthwhile, you may not. This, by the way is the best-case scenario.

On the other hand, it has been estimated that if you take regular exercise, you could live for an extra four and a half years. Which makes exercise at least fifty-four times more effective than statins. Or, to put it another way 5,400% more effective.

As I hope that you can see, I am trying to give you a sense of the scale of benefits, or harms, that I am discussing here. Most of what is hyped by the pharmaceutical industry, and others, sits on the cusp of completely and utterly irrelevant. Is coffee good or bad for you? Who cares, the effect on life expectancy is in the order of a couple of days – either way.

Looking at preventative cardiovascular medications, the only ones that make a really major difference are anti-coagulants (blood thinners) such as warfarin, rivaroxaban, apixaban and suchlike. These are primarily used to prevent stroke in atrial fibrillation. Here, you can reduce the absolute risk of a stroke by around 50% over ten years. I am not sure how this can be re-calculated into increased life expectancy. I am sure it could be done, but it is complicated. However, this is still a massive benefit, and would mean years, not days, of extra life.

In short, if you have atrial fibrillation, you most definitely should take an anticoagulant. You might want to explore magnesium supplementation, particularly if you are taking an anti-acid PPI such as omeprazole, lansoprazole – or any of the other ’…prazoles.’ These lower magnesium levels. They also lower NO and, vitamin B12 levels and double the risk of CVD death. So, I would recommend never, ever, taking these long-term.

You might also want to try reducing weight, alcohol intake, stress/strain, and carbohydrate intake at the same time to see if you can flip out of atrial fibrillation naturally. It may work, it may not.

Moving away from that slight detour, what are the other real, big-ticket items? Perhaps the most obvious is smoking, or not-smoking. Smoking twenty cigarettes a day will reduce your life expectancy by around six years. Not only that, it will reduce ‘healthy life expectancy’ by far more. By which I mean you may well have ten or twenty years of such nasty things as: difficulty breathing, repeated chest infections, leg ulcers, angina, and suchlike, before you then die – early.

At this point you may be thinking, this is all incredibly conventional. Well, yes, it is. However, there is absolutely no doubt that exercise, and not smoking, have a massive and positive effect on health. Which means that they can hardly be ignored.

Of course, some people smoke and live to ninety, and some people take no exercise and live to ninety. So, what does that prove? Nothing at all. You can play Russian roulette for several rounds without blowing your brains out, but it is going to get you in the end.

My next big-ticket item, however, is not conventional at all. It is sunshine. If there is one piece of mainstream medical advice that I would vote as the single most damaging, it would be the current, ever more hysterical, advice to avoid the sun. If we dare expose ourselves to a stray photon, we are told, then we will vastly increase the risk of dying of skin cancer.

It is true that fair skinned people, living closer to the equator than their skin was designed for, can suffer superficial skin damage with excess solar exposure. There is also a significant increase in the risk of several types of skin cancer: basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and rodent ulcers (non-melanoma cancers). Whilst not pleasant, they can be easily spotted and fully removed. Which means that they are not a major health risk, and will have virtually no impact on life expectancy.

The type of skin cancer of greatest concern is malignant melanoma. Whilst melanomas can also be spotted early, and successfully removed, they can grow deeper into the skin. At which point cancerous cells will break off from the main melanoma ‘body’, and travel about in the blood stream, before getting stuck in various other places and growing (metastases). Five-year survival for metastatic melanoma is around 15 – 20%.

So, this truly is a cancer to be avoided, even if it is not common. But does sun exposure cause, or increase, the risk of, malignant melanoma? Here, from the Lancet:

‘Outdoor workers have a decreased risk of melanoma compared with indoor workers, suggesting that chronic sunlight exposure can have a protective effect. Further, some melanomas form on sun-exposed regions; others do not…

It has long been realised that indoor workers have an increased risk for melanoma compared with those who work outdoors, suggesting that ultraviolet radiation is in some way protective against this (melanoma) cancer. Further, melanoma develops most often on the back of men and on the legs of women, areas that are not chronically exposed to the sun.’3

Essentially states that the more sunlight areas of your skin are exposed to, the less likely you are to develop a malignant melanoma. How does this fit with the fact that there has been a steady rise in the incidence of malignant melanoma (incidence means number of newly diagnosed cases per year).

The first to question to ask is simple. Is this a real rise, or has it been driven by increased recognition and diagnosis? A study in the UK concluded that there has been no true increase in incidence. It is publicity, fear, and misdiagnosis that has created the apparent epidemic of melanoma. As noted in this article in the British Journal of Dermatology:

‘Melanoma epidemic: a midsummer night’s dream?’

‘We therefore conclude that the large increase in reported incidence is likely to be due to diagnostic drift which classifies benign lesions as stage one melanoma…The distribution of the lesions (melanomas) reported did not correspond to the sites of lesions caused by solar exposure. These findings should lead to a reconsideration of the treatment of ‘early’ lesions, a search for better diagnostic methods to distinguish them from truly malignant melanomas, re- evaluation of the role of ultraviolet radiation and recommendations for protection from it, as well as the need for a new direction in the search for the cause of melanoma.’4

In short, the rise in malignant melanoma is most likely an artefact, driven by diagnostic drift, and an increased recognition of early, benign lesions (‘lesion’ is just a word for an abnormal ‘thing’ found on the body). In fact, if you look at the evidence more closely, it seems that sunlight may, in fact, protect against melanoma. A study in the US looked at people who had already been treated for melanomas, to review recurrence and long-term survival:

‘Sunburn, high intermittent sun exposure, skin awareness histories, and solar elastosis were statistically significantly inversely associated with death from melanoma.’

The conclusion of the paper:

‘Sun exposure is associated with increased survival from melanoma.’’5

Maybe not quite what you expected. But then again, vitamin D is synthesized by the action on sunlight on the skin. It converts cholesterol to vitamin D, and vitamin D has potent anti-cancer actions. Remove this from the skin at your peril.

Enough of the fear of the sun and malignant melanoma. I don’t wish to get dragged any further onto the playing field of the anti-sun brigade. Instead, here is a list of benefits that have been found from increased sun exposure. I am giving you the most positive figures here (these are relative risk reductions).:

75% reduction in colorectal cancer

50% reduction in breast cancer

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma 20 – 40% reduction

Prostate cancer 50% reduction

Bladder cancer 30% reduction

Metabolic syndrome/type II diabetes 40% reduction

Alzheimer’s 50% reduction

Multiple sclerosis 50% reduction

Psoriasis 60% reduction

Macular degeneration 7-fold reduction in risk

Improvement in mood/well-being.6,7

Well, what do you know. If you raise your gaze from malignant melanoma there is a world of benefits associated with greater exposure to the sun. With all these benefits, you would expect to see a real improvement in life expectancy. Does this happen?

Indeed, it does. There have been a series of studies in Denmark and Sweden looking at the benefit of sunshine. One of them, which looked at overall life expectancy, concluded that avoiding the sun was as bad for you as smoking.

‘Non-smokers who avoided sun exposure had a life expectancy similar to smokers in the highest sun exposure group, indicating that avoidance of sun exposure is a risk factor for death of a similar magnitude as smoking. Compared to the highest sun exposure group, life expectancy of avoiders of sun exposure was reduced by 0.6-2.1 years.’’8

This was a twenty-year study. If average life expectancy is around eighty years, we can safely multiply those figures by four, to work out that a decent amount of sun exposure can add somewhere between three, to eight years, to your life expectancy. Let’s call it five.

But it is not just cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s that are reduced by sunbathing. Sun exposure is also particularly good for the cardiovascular system, mainly because it increases nitric oxide levels. This, in turn, reduces blood pressure, and the risk of developing blood clots. It also protects the endothelium, and has significant benefits on lowering blood pressure and suchlike9.

Not only that, but lying in the sun is free and enjoyable. So, who could possibly ask for anything more?

At this point, you now know my first three big ticket items for living longer. More importantly, living longer with more ‘healthy’ and enjoyable years.

Do not smoke

Take exercise

Go out in the sun – and enjoy it.

These three things alone can add around sixteen years to your healthy lifespan. Next, the impact of mental health. The biggest hitter of them all.

Cheers Ivor. I know Grimes indirectly, he writes some good stuff. As you can see, I have finally got entirely fed up of the moronic advice to stay out of the sun. It is funny how one group, in this case dermatologists, manage to completely take over an area and rule the roost. Then everyone cowers, fearing their disapproval. i wonder how people have died, and are dying unnecessarily, because of this irrational fear of sunshine? Did no-one ever hear of evolution. That big yellow thing has been up there, in the sky, shining down for four billion years – and we are supposed to believe is is harmful to health…. jeez.

I am in Australia, I lived in Brisbane and the Gold Coast for 20 years, Melanoma Capital of the world and NMSC too. I am now in Sydney and live on the same street as The Melanoma Institute. Scary watching the number of people who go in and out of that place! I really do not know what to think! I have an oncology nurse friend who is seeing kids as young as 13 with Melanoma. Schools also saw ricketts for the first time in decades with their sunblock policies and play in the shade etc etc. Melanoma is terrifying. One ex- Wallaby friend is on Ketruda for it now as it went into his brain. He had no symptoms until a lump appeared in his groin ie, no outward sunspot or changed mole. You can not always spot them on the skin! My dermatologist told me to avoid the sun during high index hours but get sun every day for at least 20 minutes. He suggests in summer to cover the face and expose the midriff as that is protected most of the time and will not strong incidental sun. I make sure I have sun everyday before UV index goes over 5. I walk or run in shorts, wear no sunblock until it is super high UV rating ie >8. HE also has shown me papers in NEJM demonstrating B3 is good for Non Melanoma skin cancer prevention and that MElanoma and B3 are being trailed now. Here is the link: https://www.cancercouncil.com.au/blog/the-role-of-vitamin-b3-in-reducing-non-melanoma-skin-cancer/ B3 and Melanoma: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/vitamin-b-may-help-prevent-melanoma I wonder if out plant based diets in West are causing lack of B vitamins, I note in HOng KOng, they have low low Melanoma incident and are voracious meat eaters. ( I live part of the year there) Pilot colleagues also take B3 to prevent DNA damage when they fly Polar routes. Pilots get high radiation on those routes and have a higher incidence of Melanoma as well. They call those rouets the Vasectomy Routes due to radiation!
Sorry so long, this is a topic near and dear to me. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa1506197?af=R&rss=currentIssue#t=article

In the UK, I only use this as an example because I know the figures better than anywhere else, the number of deaths each year from malignant melanoma is 2,000. The number of deaths from breast, prostate, and colorectal – alone – is 35,000/year. If sun exposure doubles melanoma (which it does not), and halves the risk of other forms of cancer, we have reduced the deaths from cancer by 15,500 per year, in one country alone. Of course, we do not see people not dying from cancer, that they would have died of , had they avoided the sun. The benefits are hidden from view. The harms are trumpeted from the rooftops. In this way, our perception of risk is distorted out of all contact with reality.

This is a very useful episode, Dr K. I just hope my keeping out of direct sunlight over the years is not too late to rectify, though I didn’t go in for using sun creams. Arggghhh! I worked in an office with huge windows so got all the benefits of no UVB and all UVA.

SW thanks fr posting your second link. It is one of the small number of links I bothered to read, and once I found nicotinamide seems to be the same as niacinamide, it now gives me more confidence for using it.

I love it! A simple common sense statement ” and we are supposed to believe is is harmful to health” This is similar to my approach with the cholesterol hypothesis with Cardiologist (I’m an Internist). “Please explain to me why my own liver would make poison? (cholesterol) Also, can you explain to me how the liver ignores one of the fundamental laws of physiology i.e. ‘negative feedback’ when it has decided to set out on this suicidal course of toxic cholesterol production?” Not one has been able to answer these two simple questions. In fact, this is usually when they get very angry and stomp away muttering to themselves.

Let me explain, what I am saying is that stating that the body produces something means it cannot be harmful may be a false and dangerous blanket statement. We produce cortisol but you would not want to be producing too much

SW, I was raised in fear of sunburn, growing up in Northern (!) Germany in the early 70s. It was SPF 2-4 lotions then, SPF 6-8 becoming more common in the 80s (all UVB only). The 90s saw SPF 20 to 30, finally included some UVA filtering, and the lotions had all kinds of dubious chemical filters. By the 00s, we were slathering all-mineral SPF30 sunscreen on our kids and ourselves. It go so bad, Weleda – who were making a sunscreen that was really only natural oils and zinc oxide – stopped selling their >SPF20s sunscreens because new EU requirements could only be met by adding chemicals which they refused to do.

So it was with utter amazement that I read a blog entry by Dr. K several years ago that said sunshine is good for you. I was extremely sceptical at first, but followed the links and did some research of my own. The picture that emerged was completely add odds with what I had been led to believe. I happen to be a research scientist and get paid for drawing the right conclusions from incomplete or contradictory data (fortunately, nobody gets hurt when I get it wrong in my day job which I rarely have).

Currently, my picture (or rather, my hunch) is this:
– moderate UVB seems to be good
– no sun is bad
– UVA in absence of UVB might well be worse (office and car windows, compounded by years aof using UVB-only sunscreen)
– who knows what all those chemical filters and preservatives are up to in the skin once they are hit and altered by UV light

It is interesting to note that 311 nm sits on the soft tail of the vitamin D synthesis curve. I would still want to combine it with UVA and NIR no make sure competing reactions also take place (e.g. excess pre vitamin D formed in the skin gets destroyed by UVA so it is hard to overdose from sunlight).

I would be very careful about taking too much B3 (niacin). As ist lowers LDL and raises HDL, there was quite some research into this. It failed to lower MI but raised strokes.

As for polar routes I looked into that years ago when I had to take the polar route to Japan several times a year and when I had to travel to Fukushima prefecture a few months after the accident. Apparently, there is no indication of increased neoplasms in aircrew even if you take into account bias for preselection (healthy worker phenomenon). Similarly, there are regions where natural exposure is higher than workers in nuclear facilities are allowed to sustain, yet there are no increased cancer rates. Also, there was an apartment building in Taiwan that was built in 1982 with structural steel that had been remelted from scrap that accidentially included a spent medical Cobalt 60 source. These folks spent 10 years, getting exposed to up to 200 mSv/year, i.e. about 200x the natural dose or 10-20x what nuclear workers may get, depending on where you live. While they had chromosome anomalies when tested right after the scandal broke, their cancer rate was nowhere near the predictions from official models. Some sources even say it was lower than in the general population.

My takeaway is that you don’t want to ingest contaminated stuff but low dose gamma or neutron radiation is probably a lot less harmful than predicted by the LNT model. I can’t quite square this yet with some studies from the US that say that increased cancers from indiscriminate use of CT scans are actually in agreement with models.

Eric: As I understand it the risk from ionizing radiation is not linear, that low levels equivalent background levels actually have a hormetic effect. Joel M. Kauffman has an entire chapter on this in “Malignant Medical Myths.”

@ SW, I looked at the stats in the llink..
Something really weird is happening. We here in Oz have all been aware of the risks of melanoma since the 1980’s. Remember the ‘Slip, Slap, Slop” TV campaign ?
( Slip on a tea shirt, Slap on a hat and Slop on sunscreen ) And that’s what people have done. And kids at school are not allowed out during breaks without hats.

dispite all this i’s now 2018 and the melanoma rate has been increasing anyway.
” Melanoma rates doubled in the 20 years from 1986–2006 and are still on the rise”. And you say that Brisbane & the Gold Coast are the melanoma capitals of Australia.

The increase in skin cancer supposedly increased in the 1970’s because of the Ozone hole. The Ozone hole is the lack of O3 in the upper atmosphere blocking UV light. And the Ozone hole still exists in the Southern hemisphere every Spring & early Summer. . But it does not extend as far North as Qld. It affects Tasmania, Victoria, and the southerly parts of South Australia & NSW.

So what the hell is going on here ? Maybe getting out of the sun too much ?

In 1991 I visited family in New Zealand and they warned me that New Zealand was particularly badly affected by the hole in the ozone layer. My first day there I spent the afternoon on their deck, reading. The sun was mild by my South African standards, so I just wore shorts and a T-shirt, although I did wear a hat. Mistake! I have never been so badly burned. Red, angry, radiation burns like I was sitting under a nuclear reactor. I have been far more cautious about sun exposure since then. I get plenty of sun, and never wear sun screen, but I stay under cover during the heat of the day.

My worst case of sunburn was in 1953 – the week before the coronation, when I was taken to the Scilly Isles for a weeks hoiday when it was misty all the time. Other than that one of the occupations on the beach in summer was peeling the skin off the bits of Dad’s back that he couldn’t reach. He wore out at age 89 with no melanomas or other skin cancers. It has to be sunshine plus something else – which we never discover.

Linda, many people eating a very low carb/ketogenic/carnivory diet have reported an ability to have high levels of sun exposure, without burning. I initially thought this was crazy, but I have found this to be true. I now never put sunscreen on. I can go all day in the sun. I am, however, in New England (USA), which does not have the strongest sun. I have been told by others, though, that they don’t get burnt even in Arizona or Texas sun, which is much stronger.

I also don’t get out in the sun as much as I should. It’s hard with a desk job to get out in the sun. And going outside and taking off your shirt in the summer in a concrete jungle with nowhere to layout might be considered to be strange. 😉 I’m still trying to figure out how to increase my sun exposure.

chris c: I find this to be true, also. Once I’ve worked my way up to spending an hour or more in the sun (wearing only running shorts), I’ve developed a light tan, and never get sunburn. I wan’t aware diet was a factor in not burning, but it makes sense.

This is how big a problem Melanoma is here in Australia… This is just one Institute dealing with it. https://www.melanoma.org.au/about-the-institute/our-team/#shivalingam Have a look at the team, in particular Prof Georgina Long. I wish that a walk in the sun prevented melanoma, I think there may be more to the story than that. I just can’t string it together all the various factors. Ivor has some v interesting work re Omega 6 seed oils and Melanoma risk. Even SCC’s and BCC’s are terribly disfiguring and sometimes the damn things get away. I have a friend who their ear removed (penectomy) and HUGE skin graft over the site, all from BCC that started behind his ear… horror stories abound here re Skin Cancer of all types. Is it odd that Australia has such a high melanoma rate given the amount of time we spend in the sun ie, not at the beach, just incidental sun ie that is where most of our exposure comes from. Is the sunblock and Vit D deficiency and Seed oil consumption? Is it the DNA damage to the cells… I do have a very good friend with a HUGE family history of it…genes… It is an age old question here! Does the dose make the poison?

Yes, maybe all the interventions with diet, sunlock etc all add up! Lack of Vitamin D via sunblock may also play in to it ( I mean children started getting rickets again no long ago due to too much sunblock) … BUT the fact the Ultra Long Haul pilots who fly polar routes have twice the rates of Melanoma of general population offers a big clue. ULTRA long haul flights are fairly recent and no big studies on 18 hour flights yet. We shall see, I guess.

SW: Indeed, New York to Hong Kong practically flies over the North Pole. To find an air route it requires nothing more than a globe and a piece of string (except actual pilots, who need all sorts of fancy gizmos). I’ve flown SFO and LAX to various Asian cities, including Hong Kong, and they fly over the Aleutians, which are pretty far north, white as a sheet.

they generalize about airline pilots but towards the end, it says that measurements were performed in a general aviation airplane with an acrylic windshielt. Airliners, which fly much higher and are pressurized have multiple pane windows consisting of glass, polycarbonate and sticky polymer foils in between. This is the paper they reported on:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4476387/

For down below – on pilot exposure. They also live in the recycled ‘air’ that has been associated with toxins leaking from engine seals.
They also have more exposure to cosmic radiation including UVB – and are whizzing through the magnetosphere, on shift work, sit a lot, etc etc

You may well get a tan, but if the sun isn’t over the Azimuth, there will be no UVB coming through the atmosphere, and therefore no vitamin D. There is a natty app called dminder that gives the times of UVB for your particular latitude. Basically there is UVB coming through if your shadow is shorter than you! Being told to never go out in the midday sun negates any possible vitamin D efficacy! UVB is also unable to penetrate glass.

There is this professor Holick in Boston who has carried skin cell samples in fused silica cuvettes around the globe at various times of year and day who concluded that in Boston or north, you cannot make vitamin D even at noon between November and February. And Boston is way south of the wall…

As a physicist, I would prefer to see calibrated spectrometer readings from these places but have not been able to find them.

Yes, is there??
We’re told that above about 45˚ it’s not possible to make D with your skin in Winter.
How about all those other benefits? Reduced in Winter? Will you wash them away with a shower as with vitamin D?

But of course they have summer overhead at the poles and reflective surfaces. But then a very long dark winter.
I read of someone who studied their diet and took it on and lived well on raw meat etc thereafter – even when back in in moderate climes Cant recall his name.
The same is not true for the Innuit who take on the S.A.D.
Crap diet is a factor in dysfunctionality?
But can a crap diet be separated from cultural displacement, loss of cultural or social worth etc? Not entirely.

They USED to get vitD from the animals they ate – and of course may still do. But western diets are globalism too.
I hold that the human body is very adaptable to a wide range of conditions. Part of that may be the role of the gut biome. (That which war is being waged upon – along with the consciousness that it supports). But also, adaptive need arises as intuitive discoveries – such as mixing clay with otherwise poisonous new local foods to render them nutritious. I say intuitive – you may prefer trial and error. Which is also guided intuitively – but likely less aware of the promptings.

Frederica Huxley: But at high altitude the atmosphere is thin enough to allow UVB to penetrate. Skiing at the top of Denali (highest peak in North America) may offer protection from sunburn. So far this winter we haven’t enough snow to ski anywhere, while last we had an enormous amount.

Binra,
To be pedantic, in midsummer at the poles the sun is never higher than 23.5 degrees above the horizon, so in theory the Inuit cannot get any vitamin D from sun exposure. Mr Google tells me “their diet of whale, seal, and walrus blubber (vitamin D saturated fat), along with eggs and char (trout) are all rich in vitamin D.” Blubber also provides vitamin C.

I can understand how seals and walruses generate vitamin D — they spend hours onshore basking in the sun. But where do whales get their vitamin D from? A quick search reveals that whales are like us — they travel to sunny spots and pick up a tan by lolling in the sun, although obviously they stay in the water. http://www.thetanningguru.com/tanning-all/whales-teach-tanning/

Vilhjalmur Stefansson is the man who ate nothing but meat for a year, closely observed by dietary scientists.“Stefansson documented the fact that the Inuit diet consisted of about 90% meat and fish; Inuit would often go 6 to 9 months a year eating nothing but meat and fish… in the end, the one-year project stretched to four years, during which time the two men ate only the meat they could kill and the fish they could catch in the Canadian Arctic. Neither of the two men suffered any adverse after-effects from their four-year experiment.” — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson

I read his story, which is available online. I remember in the Arctic he craved salt, which the Inuit didn’t eat. They considered it a flavourant, not an essential. Eventually he gave up salt as well, just eating rotten fish for a bit of variety. In fact the only European thing the Eskimos wanted was tobacco.

Stefansson lived to the ripe old age of 83, to the disappointment of vegetarians everywhere.

Find your blogs so useful and an enjoyable read. Just one thought on this one… sitting In the sun is “free and enjoyable”. I’m not convinced. Well i am of the “enjoyable” but “free”? You need access to time, place, and sunshine. A lot of people’s lives are so constrained that this wouldn’t in practice be free at all. And now I’m thinking, taking my clothes off and sitting on the pavement outside my block of flats in Jan might not be so enjoyable either!

A lot of things in life that are “free and enjoyable” are not recommended/appropriate/practical outside a block of flats, in scanty clothing, in January. That does not make them not free/not enjoyable in an appropriate setting.

I hate to quibble with all the great info you just presented, but shouldn’t potassium (which you previously devoted an entire post to and I’ve shared many times) be included? Thanks for the great post!

Thank you, Dr. K, for putting all the advice on what to eat, or not eat, into perspective. It appears from you current blog, and from what you’ve promised in the next episode, the top 4 (at least) actions for avoiding CVD are not diet-related.

I thought some sense was percolating through when I saw the headline of this article.http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/it-time-retire-cholesterol-tests
Although I agree it’s a better test of cholesterol, still heart disease is still the big message.
Also, this week I saw something called, “trust me I’m a doctor”, where we had some professors at Cambridge saying, “now remember LDL is bad cholesterol, HDL is good cholesterol”. I despair.

Many thanks for down to earth and sensible advice. Our forefathers and mothers did not have health services and their professionals advising them on what to eat, when to go out in the sun, how much water to drink, how many hours to sleep and to take excercise. They just did it and did what felt right and learnt from experience and from their own forefathers and mothers. Over the millennia humans everywhere discovered what was good and what was not. We’ve somehow lost touch with our nature and handed authority over to Big Pharma and doctors. We’ve forgotten how to be our own experts.

Several biochemistry researchers feel it’s a mistake to classify “Vitamin” D as a vitamin, as our bodies use and need so much of it. Some classify it as a hormone, since the body actually makes most of what we get, and only a small amount comes from our diets.

Autism may well be an evolutionary trend. It comes in all shapes and sizes with mishaps and triumphs. In gentle forms it can be a triumph. Some of the best scientists, artists and musicians have or had it. The brain functions in a more linear and focused way. We think it an abnormality simply because people with autism are not quite the same as us.
In the same way, we underestimate animals. For years we thought of ourselves as being at the peak of evolution (alas, still do) because we could use tools and language. Now we know that a little fish can use tools and plenty of animals talk to each other and show huge amounts of intelligence. We consider their language inferior because we don’t understand it yet it is always sufficient for their needs. We might look at the things other animals do that we can’t do rather than what we can do that they can’t.
Tectonic plates could rise and we could go the way of the dinosaurs yet the clever little microbes would still be around.
Looking for an environmental cause of autism may be futile.

TS: The environmental causes of autism are becoming perfectly clear, particularly in research in the last ten years or so. J.B. Handley has an excellent compendium, and a hypothesis, on medium.com. Also see Dr. James Lyons-Weiler’s “The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism.” Also watch Professor Exley’s talk, posted above. I also recommend Dan Olmsted and Mark Blaxill’s “Denial: How Refusing to Face the Facts about Our Autism Epidemic Hurts Children, Families, and our Futures.” The autism rate in the U.S. is now 1 in 36. It is a result of neurological injury, a man-made holocaust. The CDC knows this perfectly well. Vaxxed has played in Australia. I suggest you watch it. It explains the fraud perpetrated at the management level at CDC in a study testing the Wakefield hypothesis. Their research validated this hypothesis. They got rid of these findings by excluding the data from a sufficiently large group of children to make the findings not statistically significant. They then met in a room and threw all the original documents in a big garbage can, all except the statistician on the study, Dr. William S. Thompson, who knew it was both unethical and illegal (destruction of government property). He hired the top whistleblower attorney in the U.S., and is awaiting subpoena from the Government Oversight and Reform Committee in the House of Representatives. You can also watch U.S. Representative William Posey on the floor of Congress describing this. Why has nothing been done about this? We have a criminal government, owned by pharma. Autism results from neurological injury caused by environmental toxins, and clearly the main ones are vaccine ingredients.

On the contrary. I was one of the lone people to draw attention to an autistic continuum many years ago and had trouble getting it recognised. I’ve seen more autistic people than I care to remember and have written and lectured on the subject. That doesn’t make me an expert in citing a possible cause but it entitles me to an opinion.

TS: You certainly are entitled to an opinion, and I respect that. But we cannot mandate public health policies based upon anything but first-rate science. The science involving vaccine injury exists, but is suppressed by governments, media, and social-media algorithms. It also must be privately funded, as all governments have a stake in the well-being of industry, and industry has immense power to shape policy and steer research dollars.

TS: I want to add, also, that I think your posts are of great value in this discussion. Pilots, like doctors and vets, I hold in high esteem. They impress me very much. My all time favorite was an Aussie Cathay Pacific 777 captain whose cheerful banter made for the best flight ever. Booming voice (too often you can’t hear them at all!). Beautiful plane, too (this was in 2006, before the 787).

I’m actually considered an Autism expert . Whether that is the case, who knows? – I do spend more time with persons with Autism than neurotypicals, so at the very least, I enjoy my time with folks with ASD. I can say that your post post articulates some profound thoughts about Autism, which is now medically referred to as an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the US. I think that ASD, when accompanied by typical or better language and cognitive skills (which used to be termed Asperger’s) suggests very high level left hemispheric functioning. While the two hemispheres share functioning, research in hemispheric functioning shows marked differences in function (and a little in form). Those in the computer industry by necessity possess very high levels of left hemispheric functioning in order to develop complex systems that many of us would find inscrutable. These abilities of course are also needed for other detailed, organized scientific endeavors. I suspect Linnaeus was probably autistic, and many others throughout history who developed complex systems. I tell my clients that the early Romans who developed roads and viaducts were probably socially awkward.

As to the comments below about frequency of Autism, these are ideas I do take issue with. The assumption that has to be made with any increase in diagnosis of anything (including heart disease) has to be that there is a continuum of methods and diagnostic measures. This of course is not the case with ASD. On my own I have diagnosed hundreds of children with ASD, yet their parents (usually the father) generally are undiagnosed. Many of these adults recognize the symptoms and are open to talking about it, but they are not autistic merely due to the timing of their birth. Some do come back to me after reading their child’s report and ask to be diagnosed formally, but most just acknowledge social challenges as a part of treatment for their children.

Something else to consider: As persons with highly technical abilities become more employable, they also become more economically viable. While this does not necessarily mean they will be having more children, I can say with some confidence that having a practice in Seattle (where Microsoft and Amazon reside) means I am absolutely swamped with clients with ASD. My intake coordinator literally laughs at my schedule.

Now people don’t like to get off high horses, so my words might be insulting to those who insist that environmental factors are causing a holocaust, but I thought it necessary to weigh in on this. I apologize if it’s heavy-handed (and that I referred to myself as the dreaded expert). I just thought it might be of interest to readers. I adore these kids by the way, so the term holocaust cuts deeply. They’re lovely kids. One of the great aspects of being less socially capable is that you are less likely to engage in purposefully negative social behaviors (back stabbing, etc.), which often makes them delightful to be around. I love my job.

KidPsych: I also deeply appreciate what you do. I was speaking of the roughly 40% of those with ASD who are low functioning, non-verbal, diapered for life, prone to wandering, require more or less 24 hour care, and who are beginning to age out of school systems and overwhelming services which don’t exist. Many of those who are high functioning can live reasonably normal, independent lives, and caring professionals such as yourself are needed now more than ever to assist in their development But make no mistake: this is a man-made epidemic, a result of neurological injury. It didn’t exist in my childhood in the 1950’s.

Hi Gary Ogden, as the mother of one child with autism (and one without), I’d be really interested to understand more about the environmental causes of autism you refer to, as I can’t fully see what they are in your post.

Nigella P: Here are some sources of good science: Dr. James Lyons-Weiler’s book “The Environmental and Genetic Causes of Autism.” Pretty technical, but comprehensive. A website run by an anonymous scientist: vaccinepapers.org. Ageofautism.com has published a wealth of information over its ten years of existence on both suspected causes and treatment protocols, and the search tool works well. I also highly recommend to anyone interested in the safety and efficacy of vaccines Janine Robert’s “The Vaccine Papers: Findings, as recorded in official expert transcripts.” On Dr. Lyons-Weiler’s website (lifebiomedguru) is an exhaustive list of published papers on this topic.

P.S. Autism existed in my childhood in the 50s – just not diagnosed as such. People were reluctant to label it as such even in the 70s and 80s. It slowly became accepted as being quite common.
Labels are problematic sometimes though. They suggest far more uniformity than actually exists. So many ‘conditions’ overlap too.

Firstly, I must point out that I have seen a suggestion of autism in babies long before it becomes apparent to a parent that something is different. But one does not rush into a diagnosis which might prove wrong.

Sometimes the behaviour manifests more obviously at the time of vaccinations and so the latter are easily blamed.

Having said that, anxiety is often a very prominent feature of autism and what is more anxiety provoking for an infant than being bombarded with vaccinations in a strange place?
So can vaccinations encourage autism? –Well maybe, maybe they can fuel its development, but there would need to be something in the genes.

TS: I say listen to the mothers. They know far more than any doctor every nuance of their baby’s development. Polly Tommey has recorded hundreds of their stories. Watch a few of them. Most doctors, in any case, are in denial about the connection between vaccines and injury, fearing the wrath of the state. But we should all be concerned because we have medical totalitarianism in three U.S. states, all of Australia, and now Italy and France. Britain, to their great credit, got rid of this more than a century ago. If you wish to understand the biological basis of vaccine injury read Dr. Moskowiz’ book. Well explained, and backed by a half a century of clinical observation.

“The widespread use of aluminum adjuvants can be attributed in part to the excellent safety record based on a 70-year history of use. They cause … The two main types of aluminum adjuvants that are commercially available are aluminum hydroxide adjuvant (AH) and aluminum phosphate adjuvant ” [TS please note with reference to your comment regarding the 1950s]

As you will see, any debate on the safety of Aluminium in adjuvants has been shut down for a long time. The key issue here being that there has never been a scientific assessment of the safety of Aluminium adjuvants in humans – only a single test in two rabbits that was subsequently revealed to have found that, contrary to claims that the adjuvant was quickly excreted, only 6% of the Al ‘load’ had been passed in urine in the 28 days the trial lasted. Persistence of Al in muscle tissue in humans with symptoms of MMF can exceed 36 months, during which period the body, unable to remove the Al transports it around in macrophages.

Of particular interest in the second documentary is the fact that the Pasteur institute had developed and was supplying vaccines for infants based, initially, on a calcium phosphate adjuvant (because it caused fewer medical problems), and subsequently on no adjuvants. After one takeover followed by a takeover by the world’s largest vaccine producer, neither of these vaccine lines are still in production.

Recently a no-adjuvant vaccine (Flublok) produced by a biotech in Vermont was bought out by the same largest vaccine producer. Flublok does not rely on egg based technology and consequently can produce a new vaccine in response to changes in the wild flu in circulation in 2 months compared to the 6 months of the egg based technology.

All indications are that the inability of certain individuals to ‘clear out’ Al, is strongly associated with their MMF. The body can clear out Al, but some individuals with particular chromosomal variants struggle to do this, and furthermore while the body is relatively ‘good’ at clearing out heavy metals in the environment, this is because we have evolved proteins to do this, and unfortunately until about 120 years ago we had not had to deal with Aluminium salts and have not evolved a defence against their neurotoxicity.

Stephen: Thanks for your post. Yes, MMF is a real red flag. We only know of this because the French doctors took the biopsy tissue from the same arm as the injection. The fact that Al can persist for so long is truly worrisome. Aluminum should never have been used in medicine, any more than mercury, but both still are.

Hi everyone, you want more sun?, here how to do it. I am estimating that your Gas and electric bill per month at this time of year is around £50 per week, maybe more if you are in all day. You can rent say for a month or more if you wish at this time of year a studio or maybe one bed flat for around £60 per week in the Algarve in Portugal. Current temps 18 deg C and lots of daily sunshine. This wont include utility bills but if you can find one with solar then all the better. Nightime is around 8 deg C. Flights are cheap also outside of term times. Bottom line is that you will be slightly worse off maybe even no worse off as eating costs are much lower out there. If anyone wants further advice on this please feel free to ask.

When I was a teenager I turned into a very heavy smoker since this was considered so “cool” during the 1950th but finally I was able to quit the smoking at age thirty. Well everyone in my family smoked and they too not in moderation. Sugar was also consumed in quantities in our diet. I guess that my arteries already at that young age were severely damaged by all this environmental “attacks”. To put i mildly I was never a fast runner.

On the other side I was brought up in the countryside and we were all encouraged to stay out in the sun as much as possible and to get a good tan. Doing hard work in the garden at the same time seems also to have added to my “survival”. I also then established a habit of regular exercise, typically jogging for an hour or so a couple of times each week.

Surviving my very severe MI, 20 years ago, to the very surprise of the cardiologists involved they concluded that it must have been my regular exercise during all those years which had created a significant amount of collaterals without which I for sure would have turned into a dead man at the age of 52.

I bought a UVB meter a few years back and here in Hampshire, England (latitude 51.279) in mid December the readings were pretty low on a clear sunny day (e.g. if memory serves 10 micro watts per centimeter square) compared to mid June on a clear sunny day (300 plus micro watts per centimeter square).

Not much vit D3 production on the shortest day.

And it’s cold and inclement a this time of year and you are wrapped up too.

But I think it’s also being outdoors, getting daylight (if not sunlight), fresh (?!) air and exercise. I was nearly down to a tee shirt the other day working outdoors on a mild sunny mid winter day.

Well, I tick these 3 big ticket items so they weren’t behind my brush with death.

Next post – mental health. I agree – THE big hitter and still my contender for my CVD incident.

Charles Gale: I’ve been pondering 42 ever since. I’m rereading William B. Irvine’s book on stoic joy, and I’ve discovered something remarkable. Early on he talks about the teachings of the stoic school, and one of these was “eliminate negative thoughts and emotions.” I’ve been practicing (actually since 2011, but now with renewed vigor), and have found it pretty effortless. It makes me feel calm and even-tempered all day and helps me accomplish all the activities I’ve planned for the day. When driving I notice the poor driving behavior of other drivers, but no longer respond in any way. I think this is going to be one of the keys to preventing CVD: Notice everything, but do not respond negatively, if possible. Hope I’m making sense.

As long as there is some uvb, no matter how little, we can be sure our bodies will be clever enough to make full, efficient use of it. We will be using it more efficiently than in the summer months when there is plenty to spare.

Very interesting! I especially like all the information about sun exposure.
If someone has been advised to take
Omeperazole to ‘protect’ the gut from other meds ie Prednisilone taken for an inflammatory condition,then what’s to do? It’s very confusing when you’re told one thing but you know It could cause further harm!

Thank you again, Dr K. On atrial fibulation, what if the person taking apixaban suddenly starts hemorrhaging from the nose? Is the choice then of dying from a major bleed in the brain on anticoagulants, or from a clot-induced/atrial fib stroke? Would more NO food or supplements, garlic, etc be the option to try, rather than pharmaceutical anticoagulants? Or is it Hobson’s choice?

Frederica, I get through lots of unpasteurised cheese (K) and I have just received some nutritional yeast flakes (B1) I could easily polish off a packet of yeast in one snack it’s so delicious. I hope it’s difficult to overdose.

This blog is excellent as a place to get a starting point in good nutrition. If only I had known what to eat decades ago………….

Well, as a non smoking Naturist living in Southern Spain, following a LCHF diet, walking 10,000 steps a day and taking warfarin (admittedly for a DVT rather than AF, although my GP did suspect AF before I went LCHF, when it disappeared) I can confidently expect to live for ever! Thank you Malcolm, you’ve made my day!

For some time I have been totally convinced by your arguments that sunshine is good for health and enjoyable. (Not necessarily free! I’m off to Koh Samui in March and having to pay for my delightful 14 days of basking in Vitamin D). Whenever I can I wear shorts and short sleeved shirts but, like Joan Collins, I use a sun screen only on my face and neck because I believe there is evidence that sunlight speeds up the ageing process in the skin. A pale face with bronzed legs and torso is a good compromise.

An important point in the video linked above, is that getting sunlight through glass (in the gym) is perhaps worse than nothing. The damaging UVA penetrates glass, but the protective UVB is blocked. And I think how in my childhood, few cars had air conditioning, and so people drove around with windows open, thus letting in full spectrum sunlight to at least some extent. But now everyone has air conditioning (summers are hot in the US) and people are in general spending more time indoors and getting the unbalanced UV rays.

Gary
When I see those gym adverts of people on stationary bicycles looking at fantastic scenery, I ask myself why aren’t they on the other side of the window, on a real bike etc? By the way on rollers I was totally bored after 15 minutes, so I gave them away, and bought better clothing. Fresh air is good for you!

Bill in Oz: Seeds for winter vegetables in the first month of summer? What vegetables? I never attempt this until the last month of summer, except bunching onions, which don’t mind blazing heat. It makes me happy you’re in the garden! Pruning season for me.

Bill in Oz: Thanks for the information! Potatoes have always been a minor crop for me, but I shall try your method, because this year I had lots of greenery but no spuds in the ground after they died down.

Worth researching the effects of diet on sunburn – specifically a non-processed, low sugar regime; various B vitamins, tomatoes and astaxanthin. As long as one covers up before the skin starts to go pink, these can give the skin good protection without using sunscreens.

According to the video linked above (it looks like it is over an hour but in reality he cuts it in at about the 50 minute mark) sunscreens make things worse because they mostly block the uvb and mostly do not block the uva. Which means you can’t make vitamin D an you still get the damage.

– UVA light, although less energetic than UVB, penetrates deeper into the skin, and does the sort of deep damage that can lead to melanoma.
-UVB light does not permeate as deep as UVA, causes damage in the upper layers which the body is geared to repair; it also causes sunburn; it is the portion of UV light that stimulates the melanocytes to produce melanin. The melanin protects against both UVA and UVB.

The problem with suncreams is that, until recently, they only protected against sunburn producing UVB. This meant that the damaging UVA could get through deep into the skin . . . At the sametime you were not building up protective suntan because of the missing UVB.

Over the past 20-30 years we have been exhorted to put stronger factor creams on (less protection-generating UVB gets through). It is not surprising that as take up of suncream increased, along with increased ‘protection’ factor, over the years melanoma levels have increased.

Since UVA is being partially filtered in the latest suncreams it will be interesting to see if the levels of melanoma decrease.

My rule is start building a tan as early as English weather allows, eventually getting to more than 1hr both sides. If at anytime I have reached my time limit of safe exposure I never put on suncream . . . I just cover up.

Suncream will save the pain of sunburn . . . but it gives a false sense of security.

I think fair skinned bodies isn’t an optimal design for living in Australia. There’s a reason Aboriginals are darker skinned. White Australians are suffering from having a wrong body for the climate. Probably similar to the problems black Americans are having in Chicago (except it’s in reverse).

Sasha: This is a possibility worth looking into, although NIH would never fund such an investigation, since they don’t want to know. Another likely factor is over-vaccination. They may have been vaccinated in a mobile clinic. They certainly were fully vaccinated in the refugee camp prior to departure. These would have been the WHO/GAVI vaccines with the full complement of thimerosal. Then, when they arrived here they were likely again fully vaccinated, since the records may not have travelled with them or were not acceptable to the authorities here. Tuskegee, remember Tuskegee.

So interesting and informative, as usual! Thank you.
Floyd, I live in a fairly similar climate to Maine (near Ottawa Ontario) and I, like Dr. Kendrick in Scotland, get a tan in winter. I’m outside a lot, in all seasons and even sit out “in a snowbank”… on a lawn chair, in winter and have a cuppa tea. Yes I bundle up, but at least my face is in the sun. I think just going for a walk in the daylight even if it’s not sunny, is good for you.
I worry about all the little kids who are slathered in sunscreen constantly in the summer. Aside from the effect on vit D, I wonder how all those chemicals affect them.

That’s great. Thank you, once again. We all instinctively rejoice in the arrival of warm Spring sunshine, raise our faces to it and quite simply feel better for it. It saddens me to see children covered up and slathered in nasty sunscreens. A bit of common sense wouldn’t go amiss, as in – tan but don’t burn. Simples.

Excellent blog. Just finished Malcolm’s Data book, highly recommended. Good to hear some prescriptive recommendations as well as his critiques of prevailing opinions.
What about the benefits of vitamin supplements? B12, D, other?

Thank you, Gary, from you as well)) I haven’t been getting some comments on this post, maybe I haven’t checked off the right boxes…

I’ve been in Moscow for the past 6 months. Lots of changes in Russia. Some not so good, in big Pharma. Docs are discouraged to prescribe cupping to kids (which does wonders for respiratory illnesses and was practiced in Russia for a long time). Mustard patches have become hard to find in pharmacies. They are also pushing flu shots and HPV vaccines here now. It’s sad…

Russians are a tough lot, though, and aren’t easily swayed by pharma propaganda. And there’s still lots of good folk medical knowledge among both the laypeople and the docs. One guy I know who developed a heel spur was told by his doctor to go on vacation and kick small stones on the beach ( I think he went to Bulgaria). After a two week vacation and doing that daily his heel spur was gone)). Stories like that make me smile.

Sasha: Thank you for the kind words. I am mejor de nunca, as they say south of the border, literally, “better than never,” but in English meaning “better than ever.” It is my 69th birthday, and my gift was a wall-poster periodic table, which I wanted because I’m too lazy to hunt one down in a book. You’re right that Russians are a tough lot. They, along with the Chinese and European Jewry suffered the greatest from the horrors of the Twentieth Century. I’m in the midst of reading an excerpt from Masha Gessen’s “Never Remember: Searching for Stalin’s Gulags in Putin’s Russia.” I’m horrified to hear they’re pushing the flu shot and the HPV. These are the two most worthless and dangerous of all. Good thing Russians are skeptical and have centuries of wisdom to guide them. I will post the link to Professor Chris Exley’s talk about aluminum (he is the world’s foremost authority on the biological effects of aluminum) when I’ve finished this. We should all be concerned.

Here is the link to Professor Exley’s talk (in the U.S.). He freely admits he has put his head on the chopping block. He covers antiperspirants and breast cancer, and aluminum in Alzheimer’s and Autism brains (the last research done with independent funding):
One of the things he said that struck me was that if you eat processed food (or drink un-purified water or commercial beverages) you are increasing your Al burden; not so with organic food, so smartersig, you’re fine with the free-range squirrels.

Sasha,
That reminds me of a German girl I knew years ago. As a child she had terrible knock knees. The German doctor advised her parents to force her to walk on a gravelly beach until her knees straightened. I don’t know how long it took, but it worked. She had perfect legs.

Gary: regarding Somali children and vaccines. I think Dr Bruce Ames in Triage Theory talks about diminished Vitamin D and serotonin production in cold climates for blacks vs whites. Kind of common sense even though I never thought about it…
It may partially explain why Somalis (and black children in general) are pushed into autism in greater numbers following vaccines. It may also be a part of explanation for other health issues that blacks are suffering from in the US, especially in colder states. Their bodies weren’t designed for that sort of climate.

Sasha: This is certainly biologically plausible. The great tragedy is that the NIH (National Institutes of Health which controls the purse strings for most non-industry research) will never fund any scientist investigating the etiology of autism. They are fully captured by industry, and have wasted hundreds of millions on entirely worthless looks at genetics, psychological manifestations, and so forth.

Yes, it’s incredible how bloody Russian history is. The memory of it passes through generations and forms much of Russian character and probably lots of their health outcomes (including high rates of CVD). They still manage to produce pretty big people, though. I am 183 cm and about 200 lbs and I barely make it to average size when I ride Moscow subway…

Prof Geizinger (sp?) in his book “Risk Savvy” gives a chart of European populations and how they overestimate the benefits of preventative mammograms and PSA testing. The numbers are the worst for Britain, get better as you go east and are the best for Russia. He thinks it’s because Russians never used to get as much modern “health” information as Western countries. I think it’s only partially true. Many here are sceptical of official propaganda including pharma news. They also have centuries of folk medicine that never got suppressed to the extent that it happened in the West. They are similar to China in that regard. There are people writing PhD papers for Russian academy of Sciences on benefits of deer antlers…

Martin: yes, Germans used to have a very good tradition of physiotherapy (maybe still do) so the story about the German girl makes sense))

Sasha: The scary thing to me is that, in the “Free World,” the propaganda techniques are subtle enough that most people not only trust it, but have no idea they’re being used and abused. Propaganda coming from industry, aided and abetted by government. I’ll never forget the story of the group of Soviet journalists who visited in the 1970’s who were amazed that newspapers here freely printed propaganda, rather than being forced to. I would say skepticism is a great strength in the Russian character, while history a great hazard to their health.

Jeff, is this style of parent abuse to be known in future as “Frankum’s Bunkum”? What is the next accusation of child abuse to be? First it was those who were sensible enough to research and then refuse vaccines, now it refusal to apply a detrimental and possibly toxic substance to the skin, I suppose the next could be the refusal to use fluoride toothpaste. Meanwhile there is little admonishment for those who feed carbohydrates.

I have always felt better after exercising I walk, and have a gym membership for weight training to keep my muscles going and for core strength here in Australia older folk seem to diminish quickly and as I note from my employment ( I work in a large hospital) that lack of exercise and the very low vitamin D3 seem to be of concern to the clinicians. As previous participants from Australia have noted we are paranoid about sun, I am not and never have been the first link is from Joe Mercola regarding stubborn folk living longer based on that I should make at least 300yrs. I never use sunscreen, the only concession I do and only on very hot days which here in SA as we have the distinction of being the hottest and driest state on the hottest and driest continent is to wear a hat and this is more to catch the perspiration and stop it from getting into my eyes than to protect me from the sun. Just to give you an idea how hot, this week again we are expecting 41 by Thursday. I do not use sunscreen as the ingredients are probably worse for us than any protection they might afford. We too have a huge death toll from other cancers but like many things medical, only some things seem to be targeted and pushed along with a with hysterical determination and they can be confident by telling people that they should not be personally engaged in their own health outcomes (leave it to the experts) that most will obediently comply. Later when and if it all goes wrong what then, I am a stubborn older person I like to make it my business to be informed and I am so thankful for Dr’s like Dr Kendrick who take the time to inform us. As to sun, early morning is my favoured time to go out and garden or walk, I have planted trees so work around them until about 10.30, have your skin checked SCC’s and BCC’s are more prevalent than melanoma and can be just as dangerous if not treated early. I agree with Dr Kendrick melanoma needs more study as noted they just pop us in places that have never seen the light of day with no warning and I guess that makes them so frightening. The second link is from Orthomolecular Medicine and is a comprehensive article on the benefits of Vitamin D.

Thanks for a post full of sunshine and optimism to begin the New Year. Everything you read in the news is doom and gloom: Don’t eat butter, stay out of the sun….. Living in the uk we don’t get as much sunshine as other countries, yet even here, we have been encouraged to feel it is our enemy. When I was a child we were sent out to play in the sunshine every day, and our mothers didn’t expect us to come back in unless we needed feeding. I feel sad for the children today who spend all their time on their devices and phones. They are building up a legacy of bad health, and people are not being made aware of it. Thanks again Dr K. And slightly belatedly: Blein Vaynrey Noa to you (in Manx Gaelic).

D Minder is an app I found to measure when we are able to produce vitamin D. Insert your location and it automatically calculates whether the angle of the sun is great enough (best above 50 degrees but we perhaps make some over 35 degrees) to produce Vit D when UVB rays reach the earth. The advice to go out when the sun is lower in the sky may have inadvertently caused more skin damage as the UVA rays penetrate more deeply but do not produce Vit D. Fairer skinned people appear to make vit D more efficiently than darker skins probably as an evolutionary adaptation to more northerly climes and were also able to supplement with the consumption of oily fish and mushrooms during the Vit D winter. The current advice seems to be to enjoy a short period of sunshine when the sun is high in the sky taking care not to burn. This can be as little as 5-10 minutes for us fair skinned folks.

If all of the received wisdom available to us is bunk, couldn’t you give us a clue as to what’s not bunk?
Is it as simple as: You get a tan > you get your D… and other benefits?
I’ve noticed that since I’ve been taking 5,000 IU D3 daily I tan more readily and burn much less readily. (Painting house in Summer, Massachusetts.)
D sufficiency activates melanocytes to slow further production?
My imagination?
Is it true that only UVB gets us D, gets us tan?

I have long since reached the point with medical research where I cannot truly tell you what is bunk, and what is not – for sure. This is s why I wrote Doctoring Data, as an attempt to help other people in their analysis of research. But there are no real black and whites here, only shades of grey. In general, the only research that I cling onto, is research where there is no financial pressure behind it.

Malcolm, I think you were a bit rash in your answer – the advice Caroline mentions is not that given by the establisment.
I have also heard that low sun (less than around 40deg high) is better avoided – the theory being that UVB is low, thus vitamin D production is low thus the skin does not protect itself from UVA. I only whole body sunbathe when the sun is >40deg (which, for the middle of the UK only occurs for 3-4 months of the year for a few hours either side of midday.
I’m not sure if there is a corresponding max angle for northerly folks i.e. is it safe to bathe at midday on the canary islands at midsummer if you’ve only ‘seen’ a bit of UK sun?

I looked up the potential problem with contaminated Chinese vitamin C. I haven’t really found an answer, though I reasoned, possibly wrongly, that it may not matter too much since we use ascorbic acid to counteract every possible toxin. So if it has some toxin in it, the vitamin C will deal with that. A second thing I noted was how many substances the FDA have hauled manufacturers over the coals for, giving the impression the FDA is protecting people from the possible harms caused. This sounds all well and good until you think this is the same FDA that permits the virtually indiscriminate use of compounds containing a large number of pathogens and toxins, which are collectively known as vaccines!

Dr MK, Thank you for this very thought provoking blog. It has been such a pleasure to read and try to disentangle everything, esp the sun and melanoma! I am going to suspect that the dose does indeed make the poison…. maybe the thin ozone layer over Aus and NZ adds to it! Once again, thank you so much.

Dear Malcolm,I have followed your updates for some time. They are objective,informative,mostly easy to understand and refreshingly forthright with clear advice.Thank you,keep up this very useful service. Regards,Andrew Dinsmore

Nicely written and presented, Malcolm. In a tenuous but related piece of news, the Costa Coffee franchise has stopped providing whole milk (blue top) in hospital coffee shops. I normally request this milk for my tea. The shop manager informed me that there was an instruction (from whom was not made clear) to remove whole milk from sale.

The whole Costa hospital-based franchise chain risked being excluded from NHS premises if compliance was not achieved. Furthermore; from April 2018 it will not be possible to buy any single item from Costa in their hospital franchises, where the item contains more than 200 calories.

The nanny state clearly have this wrong. I can walk to another Costa or a Macdonalds near to the hospital in which I work and order whatever I want.

As a clinician, you will appreciate the nonsense of a 30 minute lunch break (in between an endless queue of patients) requiring you to walk for twenty minutes to the hospital canteen and wait to be served for twenty minutes and then rush back to clinic. It is unsurprising to see nurses grab a quick drink of Pepsi, a Mars bar and packet of crisps to maintain their energy levels.

If the government seriously believes that a teaspoon of whole milk is responsible for the obesity crisis in the UK, they ought to try reading the research.

I welcome this move, I guess they are concerned about the effect cows milk has on prostrate cancer to name but one. I am also happy to see that because NHS hospitals would not come into line and remove sugary soda drinks they are now being forced to do so. Imagine that, hospitals were asked voluntarily to remove soda and they refused and yet we defend the NHS with our last breath literally

I am greatly against banning things. It suggests that people are too stupid and irresponsible to make their own decisions, and we – the great and good – most tell them what do do, how to live, and suchlike. In the old days, you would call this fascism. A form of thinking about the way to run society that has tended to end rather badly.

smartersig, why should it bother you what other people want in their coffee? Is not the coffee also a problem regardless of the milk? I don’t drink tea or coffee, but I do drink unpasteurised whole milk. Presumably they will allow low fat, skimmed and other versions known to have their own problems. As for your hint it might affect prostates perhaps you should watch https://youtu.be/tq3X27c1bTc and then question the whole intervention paradigm.

Enjoyed the presentation Notepad, some interesting stuff about Prostate diagnosis. My point is that he would do himself a big favour and lose fewer listeners in the first 60 seconds if when talking about prostrate health and exercise he looked like got the minimum recommended amount

Another claim based on no evidence? You have no idea how many people would not watch beyond the first 60 seconds, nor what the reason would be. It would be quite possoble that many viewers were envious that he weighed a lot less than they did, since he is in the US.

You must be 100% correct in all your statements then, however sorry to say, I must be able to see something beyond just weight, as I would trust Bergman’s diagnosis and advice in preference to yours. No offense meant.

Well smartersig, this news may come as a shock to you… everyone dies. (even you will die some day) You can spend your life worrying about the various factors which will bring about your own demise. Alternatively you can live your life as fully as your health permits and let the statisticians,GPs, department of health and life insurance actuaries worry about it.

I dislike the notion that some civil servant or another will decide how I manage my own diet. Furthermore; I don’t wish to be the self-fulfilling statistic which is often presaged by the pharmaceutical companies. These purveyors of “good health” appear to be routinely involved in the wholesale mismanagement of study data; presumably in order to sell more harmful drugs to a somnolent population and a supine medical profession.

How can you be unhappy for drug companies to mismanage us but happy that hospitals do the same promoting coca cola and Dr Pepper. If hospital introduced cigarette vending machines would that be OK because it is all part of free choice and we do not want hospitals managing our choices ?.

Dr Kendrick: “I am greatly against banning things. It suggests that people are too stupid and irresponsible to make their own decisions…”

Hear, hear! I would love to see tobacco companies, for example, along with their toxic products, go out of business. But I prefer to see that happen from people wisely quitting smoking or never starting. Far better than initiatives and legislation to ban the products. And better than taxing them from hell to breakfast, which just takes money out of consumers’ pockets (which may or may reduce their smoking) when they have no intention of quitting. Not to mention the conflict of interest governments incur as they become addicted to toxic revenue streams.

Bob, taxes on tobacco products definitely reduce the number of smokers. That is what has happened here in Australia. The smoking population used to 65% of the adult population here in the 1960’s. It is now just 12% of the adult population. In fact smoking is so rare that I can go for days and not bump into one.
And the revenue raised contributes towards the health consequences not just of smokers, but all the passive smokers who have been around them, living with them all those decades..

Oz also has a massive black market in cigarettes. I think 12% smoking rate is pulled out of very dodgy stats. The SHAME that smokers feel, would induce lying about smoking, so the rate is probably much higher. Oz is extremely backward in it’s Tobacco Control policies – more like a Totalitarian State than a sane one. You can see the insanity exposed by their treatment of vapers and vaping. Shameful! Short-sighted and despicable. Thank God I don’t live there.

Chop Chop has increased in recent years …But growing tobacco is quite distinctive in the way it is farmed. And so very obvious. Also the Australian Federal police actually have excellent access to satellite photography which shows up this distinctive farm crop.
Attempting to smuggle cigarettes through customs at airports has also increased in recent years. But so have the confiscations of smuggled tobacco products with significant fines being imposed on people doing it.

And it seems you do not like the Australian governments policy on tobacco & cigarettes.. Tobacco & cigarettes are not banned. But cigarettes are expensive. Also they are restricted to people over 18 years old. And smoking is not permitted in most public places ( including pubs & clubs ) because of the health affects on other people nearby. IE the passive smoking problem.

All this has seen a massive improvement in the health of millions in this country. And yes it is 12% of the population here who are still smoking. I have lived in other countries with high rates of smoking like the Philippines and Argentina and Indonesia. And I know what I prefer as a non smoker thank you.

Finally my father died of throat cancer some years ago. Shall I say what caused the cancer ? Should i say that when he did consider stopping his 40 or so a day, the oncologist said “don’t bother, it’s too late”.

As for you being glad that you do not live here, why so am I. I wonder sometimes if being a smoker should be a reason for denying a visa to people wanting to come here to visit or live. But maybe that is a tad extreme.

Ohhhh I forgot to mention that tobacco advertising is banned in Australia…Has been since the 1970’s..And packets of cigarettes are sols in plain packaging with warnings of the health consequences on the packet.
And finally cigarettes & other tobacco products cannot be displayed in shops at all. They are stored in closed steel door cupboards until bought by customers.
All of these policies are supported by all the political parties with the possible exception of the new Conservative party which polls at about 3%…

Are the tobacco industry upset ? And that is good I think.
All in all an example of how to reduce smoking rates in countries , without banning it as in a drug war. It is also saving many thousands from the awful disease consequences. And saving the rest of us from paying billions for this ill health via our Medicare system.

So? In the UK, we have the same. Our smoking rate has also gone down. And now with electronic cigarettes it is dropping further. The difference is that Oz does not approve of vaping. That’s called cutting of your nose to spite your face! I think your government has been so absolutely taken over by the Smokefree dogma, they can’t think straight.

Just to add, no one “pays” for smokers – their taxes pay adequately for their own medical treatment – and here, in the UK – for the treatment of others!

If you overtax cigarettes, you lose out, like Oz does, on the tax – illegal imports make all the cash because less and less people are buying the little green packets with medical porn decorations on them. I think that policy is called shooting yourself in the foot!

In general, I believe that Tobacco Control is a dangerous self replicating ‘industry’. It should be stopped. It’s ‘endgame’, if you read it, is totalitarianism in its purity. And the methods it has used to promote fear and terror in people about the dangers of smoking, has not been moral, or honest. I have to object to anything other than education (and from Tobacco Control even that is questionable!) about the dangers of smoking.

The tool they used to inflame the passion of anyone who does not smoke, is that second-hand-smoke harms OTHER people. This is scientifically doubtful, yet it is still promoted as a ‘fact’ and a tool for prohibition and many other evils against the people.

Smokers are the most persecuted people in the world. We would not accept such legislation against any other group of people.

And finally, – I am not a smoker, but I used to be – for fifty years. I’m part of the population that has ‘survived’ healthily, as are my children who grew up in a home filled with second-hand-smoke from two smokers. I’m one of the pesky baby boomers clogging up the system, because we just will not DIE!

Bill in Oz: The fly in the ointment here is that if you give the government money, they will find a way to waste as much of it as possible as quickly as possible. We have given Afghanistan sufficient funds to build a modern country, but this obviously has done little good (I’m not blaming the Afghans for this).

So lets continue subsidising the tobacco companies by you and I paying for the care of smokers when the proverbial hits the fan. Taxing sugar worked in Mexico as sugar drink consumption fell. Provided govt channel that tax revenue, should there be any net increase, into care then everybody wins. Banning it along with soda drinks in hospitals is just a no brainer but then hospitals are not there to make us well

I don’t doubt taxes on tobacco have an impact. I’ve just been consistently surprised at how many people pay the taxes and continue to use tobacco. Especially younger people. Along with paying for tats and piercings. Along with wearing sweaters on 95 degree days.

Fashion statements are fascinating.

And of course, I’m concerned with the addictive nature of revenue streams to governments. It must not be assumed governments manage the money wisely.

Smartersig, to my understanding, if there is any link between milk and cancer, its about the growth hormones and maybe some of the proteins, neither of which are removed by skimming the fat off the milk.

Re the discussion about Dr. Bergman, google says he is a doctor of chiropractic. While many MDs make utter fools of themselves and some of the most valuable input in the fields of nutrition and cancer come from vets, physicists, biologists, even English lit majors (Denise), I am a bit wary about someone whose formal education is in a field that embraces a fair bit of voodoo. There, I said it. Flame on…

I think I might be happier with voodoo than with the commercial chicanery that stems from the big pharma world. As Matthias Rath said, big pharma is rather similar to the Mafia, the difference is the Mafia hasn’t killed so many people.

Jeff Cable, thanks for this piece of information. It gives me a reason for writing another complaint to my useless MP. (He has been in the house for decades and has been a cabinet minister in several posts, so you can gauge he is a brown noser). I will ask why the National Sick Service has removed nutrients in the form of whole milk and why the stupidity of limiting calories to 200 per item, when we know calories per se are irrelevant . As an example I eat typically six to eight ounces of French and Swiss cheeses most lunch times. That is 600 to 800 calories. I eat two or three large (very) eggs for breakfast often and a great dollop (technical term) of unpasteurised cream with fruit to finish off th evening meal, even so I have gradually lost weight to 11 stone from around 12 stone. I am never hungry and sometimes go all day doing physical work without eating until the evening. So who ever is advising the N(Sick)S seems to be lacking knowledge and probably needs hospitalising. That might give them some understanding of the poor nutrition value of hospital food.

I too share the opinion expressed by Malcolm… banning things is an ineffective method of control. Witness drugs and alcohol abuse in every location where humans can be found. I also want to be considered as capable of managing my own life (wright or wrong) and I have no wish for it to be managed by proxy. I am present and fully alert and can make my own decisions.

It is quite “unbelievable” how the dogma of the “danger of fat” without any scientific foundation can permeate our modern society and take on ridiculous forms.

In Sweden our hamburger chain MAX announced a “Low Carb Burger” on the menu where the bun was replaced by a large sallad leaf wrapping. This item turned very popular. However our regulating food authorities forbid the use of this name with the threat of very high fines if MAX insisted – actually 10,000 Euros per month if they didn’t yield. “Low Carb” is certainly a red blanket today while “Low Fat” allows any dealer to put on a “Healthy Heart” symbol.

It is saddening to learn that dogma gets any house room in a society that was considered to be at the forefront of human rights and social advancement. In a location where bondförstånd and Jämlikhet abound, it is not easy to understand how dogma can gain any traction among the well-educated populace. Interestingly, I found during my time spent in Finland that the Finns were not inclined to accept nonsense from any source. I know it is merely my own generalisation, based upon self-biased observations but I found Finnish society refreshingly sane, highly civil and remarkably good humoured.

Gary Ogden – thanks for the William B Irvine comments – I’ll try get his book. Bad driving was a good example…I always note and respond badly. It just seems to be a Herculaen task to overcome what appears to be an ingrained personality trait. Like those cartoon bumps on the head, you suppress the bump and up it pops again. I saw several hypnotherapists a few years back with the idea/hope that they could plant a response in my brain to respond positively to e.g. slamming doors. Like the stage hypnotherapists do – every time you hear a certain word you will do this or that. Never came to anything – not sure/can’t remember why.

Charles Gale: You’re right, it isn’t easy to change ingrained habits. Takes lots and lots of practice. One thing I do is smile instead of swear (saving that for when I use my thumb for a nail head). I also realize what is the point to getting angry about something I can do nothing about? The result is laughter. The calmness which comes from learning these techniques also has a positive effect on the people we interact with.

Dr. Kendrick: Me, too. First I swear, then I smile at my folly. What is missing now is the anger. When I examine my own imperfections I think, how can I complain about the imperfections of others? This does not apply in the case of intentional harm, of course, when I can get as righteous as anyone.

If easy is letting a habit run, making a new one will seem not easy – and open a can of worms in terms of awareness of discomfort. Wanting the bad feelings to go away by the quickest route is often simply assigning them to something else and attacking, shouting, hating it etc. THis also applies to a judgement of ourself in hindsight – the moment after the hammer hits the thumb. Pain is a call in the heart for embrace no matter where in the body it manifests. Attending immediately to the need, by passes the ‘habit’ that is now a choice – to get really MAD at yourself – and try to mitigate the rage on the hammer etc. Persistent curiosity brings the experience of nipping an ‘injury’ in the bud. This can lead to either amazingly quick healing – or lack of injury.
It is noticeable that if you could have instant release – but have to yield – give up – your STORY …would you? The Corporate PR that engineers our society is all a form of narrative control. Underneath this are collective fears and guilting or blame and shame – not least of which is investment in our story.
It isn’t the whole truth that we can do nothing about – eg hammered fingers. We can and generally do, reinforce our story, and our wounds then serve a purpose of proof – particularly when making claim of grievance. Hence also, those who have ‘spontaneous remissions’ are not considered real nor followed up by those who depend on the story, the wounds and the interventions by which to find or bolster meaning in their lives.
I regard a habit that I have become self aware of, as a choice. We tend to make language to evade and escape responsibility for choice… and then ‘see’ such a world …until we wake up to what a nightmare that makes. If in fact we do.

A good example, it would seem, of what Dr. Nortin Hadler calls “small effectology.”

Of course, we’re talking about stroke, so some people might well consider the warfarin a reasonable measure despite all this, but considering the risks, and the myriad uncertainties in the research to date, I doubt warfarin can reasonably be considered a major win. Not remotely in the same league as diet, exercise, sun, etc.

I looked into all this when my partner’s mother was put on warfarin for a-fib. At the time I had the sense that, were it me, I’d probably stick with the aspirin. After, of course, doing absolutely everything to cure the a-fib. Speaking of which . . . another topic . . . but at my suggestion one of my own doctors tried what would conventionally be considered very high dose iodine supplementation (Dr. Guy Abraham’s iodine protocol). To the astonishment of his big shot Harvard cardiologist, the a-fib promptly resolved and never returned. Others have had the same result. I’m sure this is not the only cause of a-fib, but like many other tissues the heart concentrates and needs iodine, and deficiency is rampant.

I know you’re interested in thyroid disease, too. Sometime you’d enjoy looking into iodine supplementation there. I personally cut my required dose of T4 for Hashimoto’s in half with the Abraham protocol. Has been shown in thousands of people in the Iodine Project, among many other benefits. At earlier stages of the disease complete and apparently permanent cure is often achieved. The endos remain dead set against what they consider high dose iodine. Ah, well…

My 90 yo mother had a spot of afib 5 years ago and they put her on Warfarrin and statins. I managed to get her off statins but I dont think my powers of persuasion would get her of Warf’. She is of the ‘doctor is right’ age group. Needless to say she is now getting increasingly breathless. I cannot prove that the Warf’ is causing sclerosis of the arteries but as a registered side effect I suspect it is.

Bill
I have a friend, who for some reason has thick blood, and was put on Xarelto to which there is no as yet marketed antidote. He asked me what I thought, I said
One, it is hellish expensive
Two, keep away from any sharp tools.

So far, I’m pleased with my apixaban (Eliquis), taken because of occasional arrhythmias to prevent (Read: reduce chances of) stroke.
As far as the researches can be trusted, it seems that expensive apixaban is modestly best at reducing stroke risk as well as at reducing serious bleeds, putting cheap warfarin at a serious cost disadvantage.
And it doesn’t screw up your K status.
Bleeds are worse on aspirin. Combinations of any anticoagulant AND aspirin can be catastrophic.

Needed a prostate biopsy several years ago. Decided to try iodine as well. Took it orally in water and applied a couple drops externally to the area once a day. Cut down my PSA back into its historically healthy range and eliminated a couple of suspicious nodules, as in completely gone. Started to tell doc about it but he just rushed me out the door with “great..keep doin’ what you’re doin’, blah, blah, blah..” In other words, he was not interested. Have kept with it @ 3x a week. Don’t know for sure if it was the iodine (though I suspect) but all’s been well since.

This is the first I have heard of megadose iodine and Dr. Abraham. I have only read one PDF by Stephanie Buist yet and am still sceptical.

The doses of 50 mg/day seem outrageously high. How much did our ancenstors get if living inland? How much do folks who live near the sea and eat plenty of fish get? Not all that much, I suppose, as even iodized table salt is in ~300 µg/teaspoon category and sea salt contains less.

Yes, the thyroid needs iodine but is there also a too much, considering that fluorine and bromine are toxic? The 7th group of the periodic table goes fluorine, chlorine, bromine, iodine. Just from the chemistry of it, it makes no sense that chloride should be harmless or slightly beneficial and iodide highly beneficial if the other two with the same configuration of outside electrons are mildly to highly toxic.

I think the majority of studies show a protective effect with moderate sun exposure. I haven’t seen any data to contradict the migrant studies etc that suggest increased melanoma risk in those who grew up near the coast or in equatorial climates or who got many sunburns in childhood years

Vitamin D (really a hormone) is so easy to measure in the blood. Just ask your doctor for a blood test. I recommend supplementing with D3 not D2. As you get older, it is harder for your skin to make vitamin D. After supplementing for 2 years with D3 , 2000ui a day and at the end of summer with a general sun tan , my vitamin d measured just above adequacy.

I unfortunately allowed a GP to tick the cholesterol box when requesting another blood test. Now I’m labelled with a diagnosis of Hypercholesterolemia, and the inevitable pressure, resisted, to take statins. This among other things means higher travel insurance, even though I’m not convinced of any risk. Any thoughts how to get this diagnosis removed?

Yes, thanks, I was wondering about hacking my cholesterol and have looked at Dave’s method.
Maybe, I’ll try it with a private cholesterol measure to see how it works for me, and if it does work get it done again with my GP.
Can anyone suggest a reasonable private cholesterol testing service in the UK?
I nearly got prescribed blood pressure medication as well because I was called in to discuss my “high” cholesterol like it was a medical emergency so was a little stressed!
It angers me that I have to declare “high” cholesterol for travel insurance and no doubt pay a higher premium.

Why would you want to lower your cholesterol? A substance which is the building block for many processes in the body, and something for the most part is produced by the liver. Do you think your liver is not competent to control the process, and that outside advisors know better?

Maybe his cholesterol levels are way out of wack because perhaps just perhaps he has poor reverse transportation and as a result his Cholesterol circulation is prolonged and therefore prone to oxidisation…… just maybe but perhaps we should ask.

The Myogenic theory of heart disease and the fact that over active cortisol production in Cushing disease which results in a high incidence of death by heart disease in Cushing patients links very nicely with Dr Kendricks theories. I know he has mentioned some if not all of this stuff before. What I particularly like about all this, given that the vast majority of us are not Cushing victims, is that sugar screws up the function of the adrenal glands. It causes it to put the regulation of Cardotonics on the back burner while it is sorting out other crap leaving us open to Crushing disease otherwise known as a sharp pain in the chest.

Smartersig
I am probably one of those who disagree with you, but I must say I find your glucose experiment very interesting. Do do the measurement with a meter? If so, have you considered doing it four or five times at say hourly intervals?

Travel insurance company can decline payment if I haven’t given them what they consider to material information. So, while I am not concerned about my cholesterol numbers, and am certainly not going to take statins, if I were to have some sort of cardiovascular event on holiday (even feeling dizzy and falling perhaps!) and they contact my GP and GP says I have high cholesterol and I hadn’t mentioned it they could decide not to pay out, because in their crude medical screening they think high cholesterol is bad and a CVD risk.

I have no desire to reduce my cholesterol, other than temporarily to game the system!

There appears to be some people who now consider diet not that important anymore (with the caveat “as long as it is healthy” ) since it is not in the top 4.
Out of curiosity I searched to see if smoking has any benefits and found this:
“A pensioner, Winnie Langley, who smoked for more than 95 years and only gave up because she could no longer see the end of a match, has died a month short of her 103rd birthday.” One observation would be that there is healthy smoking and unhealthy smoking, like there is healthy and unhealthy sun exposure. Canada will be legalizing marijuana this summer and I am considering growing 4 plants for medicinal use. A great stress reliever apparently. Not interested in smoking the stuff but for culinary use.

As the commenter above said, there’s smoking and smoking…it’s one thing to smoke cigars (like the oldest US veteran, Richard Overton, does at 111 years old) or a pipe, the way people in various parts of the world have been doing for at least 10k years, with the conscience that’s a good and relaxing thing for your health to enjoy ‘the gift of the gods’ and a totally different thing to smoke present day commercial cigarettes (which at most have 50% tobacco, the rest being made up of junk and chemicals) feeling guilty, having fully swallowed anti-smoking propaganda and being under the nocebo effect.

I am making the point that ever time someone makes a statement of the type ‘my next door neighbours uncle smoked until he died at 95’ they are doing no one any favours for two reasons. First they may or may not have lived longer without smoking (stats suggest longer not shorter) and who gives a damn whether we can find a smoker that lived longer than the average person. It proved nothing except the poster has little grasp of statistics. Apologies if the above sounds a bit harsh but I am happy to listen to meat eaters but draw the line at any indirect suggestion that smoking is anything than a proven life loser.

You can think that way – and use it to justify whatever you want.
I dont.
Nor am I advocating smoking for health!
But whatever you do – why not do it as an expression of health (joy) and it will have a different effect than done in guilt.
But in your world I will sooner or later have to be gagged, gulagged or culled, because I stand in freedom to learn by our choices – even poor choices.

Go to your nearest hospital. A large one would get you more numbers.
Go to the pulmonary ward during visiting hours.
Politely ask the patient or the patient’s family if the patient is/was a smoker. A certain percentage won’t be able to answer because they’ll be on nebulizers or in oxygen masks. Persist, though. A visitor might be able to inform you.

Given how much Dr. K. alresdy does, do you think this “challenge” is a reasonable suggestion? I understood decades ago cigarette smoking was bad for health because of the chemical make up of the cigarettes from the additives and from the processing of the tobacco. A cigarette will deplete vitamin C reserves by 35mg, so 20 a day will use up 750mg. This could be why smokers tend to die from heart problems. It was a stroke that was the first problem for my father, then it progressed for about 12 years. If he hadn’t been a heavy smoker he might have had better health for longer.

Blanket statements are a false start. To be health serving is not in all times under all circumstances for all people. Or the opposite as a demonsisation in reverse.
What exactly, why (or in what context exactly) and to what extend under what conditions.
I have no desire to convince you or anyone of anything you/they are not already opening to embrace and I don’t mean merely believe.
Look at WHAT first. Has this been consistent through recorded history or does the pesticide toxicity and other additives come into the picture? Along with declining health in other ways (ie lower vit C and vit B levels – both of which have significant effect in clearing or countering toxic effects. Not to mention smoking guilt.
Modern smoking is probably a death wish – but not so different from a LOT else, except in being openly assigned such a status, but at least it is in slow motion allowing time in which to reconsider and make other choices. It HAS also served a lot of other functions – particularly in wartime. I don’t feel to encourage ANY addictive relationship – but don’t let me stop you – because I cant! Shut one door and some others open. I don’t believe the anti-smoking issue is about health, so much as politics by stealth. It is a kind of ju-jitsu to subvert a movement of the people FOR the people into a weapon to use against them. Instinctively you pick up on this with regard to banning things being the wrong approach. But throw in enough studies, experts and media coverage and some fat pouring out of people’s arteries(?) (GET THAT for a mixed metaphor!) – and who but a fool would speak against the tide?
First they came for the smokers… https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=51&v=s2E5iGHBWaw (anti smoking ad montage).
Never mind the truth if we achieve our goal is not science, but politics.

JDPattern
Using your logic, should I also go to the cardiac ward, ask how many patients there have been on heart medications (most of them) – similarly some won’t be able to respond, being in coma after their second or third MI – and conclude that the medication caused their heart problems? 🙂

I’m currently reading The Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis. As you can imagine, the tobacco industry is one of the stars of the show. They have been obfuscating, prevaricating, concealing, threatening, bribing, cajoling, advertising, suing, undermining, lobbying, threatening, suborning, doing anything they can, to persuade people that cigarette smoking is not a cause of cancer.

The Germans knew since the late 1930s that smokers have more chance of getting lung cancer than non-smokers, after correcting for other cancer-causing factors. (A lot of people started smoking in WWI, so 20 years later there was a big jump in lung cancer numbers.)

Personally I smoked a pack a day for 25 years, always plain cigarettes. (Filters made me cough.) I managed to give up 25 years ago, thank goodness. So far, touch wood, no ill-effects.

I know a number of people with their voice-boxes removed who talk through a hole in their throats, because of cancer. Ironically, the only person I know who died of lung cancer was a non-smoker (although, being a surfer, I’m sure he smoked pot.)

Incidentally, how’s this for an own goal? The cigarette industry has tried to come up with a safer cigarette for decades. Better filters were seen as the way to go, and in 1952 Kent came up with a stunningly effective filter made of…. ASBESTOS! Fortunately, it was too effective and filtered all the taste out of the cigarette, so the public eventually rejected it, but only after smoking about 12 billion of them.

AH,
Has Vlad read Dr K? It remains to be seen. It wasn’t enough if he has,

Smarter & Martin,
Right! More power to you.

Vlad,
I can see that you do not want to engage on a level playing field.
Not my logic. 😦
I no more believe cardiac medication put people in the cardiac ward than I do that meds like albuterol put people in the pulmonary ward.
Look upstream as far as you can go for causes.

Since you don’t want to play, I’ll share unilaterally:
I visited my COPD afflicted mother in the pulmonary ward of a large N J hospital in the late ’90s. (She had quit Lucky Strikes three years earlier after forty years of regular smoking.) You don’t need cancer to suffer. Imagine drowning in your own mucus.
I visited the other patients on that ward over a ten day period. The roster varied. Sometimes more than twenty, sometimes less.
They. Were. All. Smokers.

JDPatten
Your logic in that example is to look at associations (strong as they may be) on a non-randomized (the status smoker/non smoker is not randomly assigned, but self selected) sample of 20 or so patients and jump to the conclusion that there is a causal relationship.
That the majority of people who smoked for 40years didn’t end up with COPD, and some of them made the world’s longest lived people list, will just call it the ‘healthy smoker’ paradox. 🙂

Andy S: Great story! Jean Calmet, who lived to 122, smoked until her 90’s (in her case perhaps smoking has a French Paradox). Way to go Canada legalizing dope (but not raw milk!). Our Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, is probably having fits, as he hates the stuff.

Dope/hemp is not one thing either. I suspect GM is used for skunk and with destructive intent. I suspect the ‘liberalisation’ will turn into a highly regulated patent protected industry grab it is a top-down directive.

Alcohol is not one thing either. etc.

‘Reefer’ madness was the PR by which to kill the first billion dollar industry in the USA. The Oil/Energy cartel also founded the pharmaceutical wing of a global but cloaked power. It’s no conspiracy, it is ‘saving lives’. And that nations which seem to be politically at odds are in the same pharma and hi tech infrastructural complicity, reveals – at least to me – that the politics is a sideshow while the erasure of liberty (and consciousness of it) proceeds unchecked.

binra: “Reefer Madness” was an actual movie they showed us in college health science class. Funny thing is probably half the class were already stoners. The black people in the film. who were listening to jazz, looked like they were having lots of fun! You’re likely right about the probable capture of cannabis by industry, sad to say. I haven’t had any in decades, and haven’t the need or wish for it, yet it is clearly a powerful medicinal.

I was referring to the hemp industry. Not cannabis as such. Far more than recreational highs from some strains. Linen, paper, fuel. Henry Ford made a motor car (body presumably) from hemp that ran on fuel from hemp. If hemp derived products instead of oil and coal derived plastics had been developed, perhaps happier world… but that choice was the road not taken. And yes, the medicinal properties of hemp are wholly worthy of being made accessible.
Drug habits tend to represent substitution for a lack of connection. When there is a culture of respect, moderation tends to align with that respect with regard to drugs.
There is more that came from promotion and prohibition of hemp that is an ongoing blight on such societies – for behind the scenes, both ends are played out.

Way back, there used to be a hemp works in town – it was grown locally and elsewhere for the fibre for cloth and rope.

More recently there was a resurgence due to the (GM?) development of non-psychoactive strains. A few farmers grew it, with varying degrees of success and a new factory opened up to process it into fabric for the motor and building industries then closed due to a lack of markets. I believe elsewhere it was also trialled as “biofuel” for electricity generation. I joked with one of the farmers that he should snip it up, stuff it into baggies and sell it in London pubs. He couldn’t have been arrested for dealing, but maybe would have fallen foul of the Trades Description Act.

I inadvertently grew some in the garden, from spilled birdseed. Actually it WAS psychoactive but only mildly so. Kind of cannabis lite.

Regarding the supposed benefit of anticoagulants for atrial fibrillation, I systematically reviewed the randomized trials used to support anticoagulants and subsequent observational data. I concluded, “Flaws in the original 6 warfarin versus placebo RCTs together with recent observational study data suggest that warfarin causes net harm for patients with NVAF. Clinical practice guidelines calling for anticoagulant drug prophylaxis for NVAF patients and Food and Drug Administration approval for anticoagulants for NVAF should be retracted.” https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=FDA-2015-P-3410-0001 This analysis is in the form of a petition to the FDA in the USA to retract the approval of anticoagulants for the indication of NVAF. The FDA has not refuted this analysis in over 2 years.

My actual experience:
I was on (cheap) warfarin for a few months leading up to my first AF ablation (Another story!)
I was rarely able to keep my INR in therapeutic range. Vitamin K in food affects the numbers. I was on three different doses during that period. Had my fingers jabbed for blood weekly.
My commute, the cost of testing, the overhead of clinic and nurse, my limited ability to use sore fingers — all have cost, rendering the expensive NOAC alternatives cost effective.
My apixaban experience has been uneventful for three years. So far.
And, no, there’s no reason to be hysterical about sharp tools. I get cut, I don’t hemorrhage. Xa inhibitors don’t work that way.

I have no doubt that clinical experience with warfarin is even worse than with the RCTs. You won’t hear “Oops, doc. I forgot for a couple days so I took a handfull to make up.” in an RCT. (Have you never forgotten a pill?)

A good friend had an ischemic stroke, not knowing he was in AF. On warfarin and after struggling to recover, he functioned well for a decade or so. Then he had a hemorrhagic stroke and an even greater struggle to recover. Warfarin? What was his INR? ?? How many others were/are in his boat?

This paper sees the faults inherent in warfarin USAGE PRACTICES, but seems to simply toss the NOACs, as anticoagulants, into that catagory as well. Am I right?

JDPatten
Here are two articles by John Mandrola MD Clinical Electrophysiologist. In the first article from 2013 he questions the advantages of NOFV drugs over warfarin but in the second article from 2017 he seems to be coming around to using the NOFV drugs but not without some reservations. With my computer, clicking on the links took me to a login page on Medscape. If I copy/paste the link in a Google search I get the option to click on an article link which takes me directly to the article.https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/818013https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/876322
I have a horse in this race so I’m most interested in what Dr. Kendrick has to say about the David K Cundiff petition.
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA

Yes. We ARE the horses!
Thank you for the Mandrola links. I do follow him and I’ve read the articles. I was quite unhappy to go on apixaban. No one would like to think that it’s necessary. As I said before, so far, so good.

This Cundiff letter is really disconcerting. He’s going against the tide. (Nothing new here, right?)

But:
Is the letter a work of rationality, or is it a rationalization? There’s cause to wonder.
Is the data doctored, or is this a genuine breakthrough? (I can’t tell.)

It all started off with issues concerning Deep Vein Thrombosis. Methinks the author is not disinterested. Nothing’s simple!

JD,
You say “Yes. We ARE the horses!” So true. I don’t need to win the race, just have a respectable finish!
The article you link is troubling re Cundiff’s motives.
Personally I think that warfarin is an effective product. I like the fact that there is a simple measurement of it’s proper dosing level (INR or PT). A readily available, simple gauge on the NOACs effect does not exist – that makes me uncomfortable.
I do not have AF so here in the USA NOACs are only approved for AF patients. The down side for warfarin is a tendency for calcium accumulation in the arteries over a long period of time. If you have a valve replacement at 30 years of age this is certainly important when considering warfarin but for OLD folks there is probably not enough time left to matter. Anyway, calcium build up measurement via carotid artery ultrasound is easy and non-invasive. US doctors will prescribe NOACs off-label if requested so I may move to an NOAC if calcium buildup is detected. Right now my carotid arteries do not have significant calcium.
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA

DR K it seems to me that lots of brain mini clots followed by a big one, are just as disastrous as lots of mini brain bleeds followed by a big one. Essentially both have the same results – strokes, then death. I watched it happen to my father on warfarin. He had been a bleeder all his life, but before the final massive brain bleed he had had massive nose bleeds followed by brain bleeds that left him bereft of his outstanding memory, which made him miserable. I fear that apixaban does essentially the same thing, although it’s touted as better than warfarin. When my cardiology nurse told me to double the dose I spouted blood from the nose for two hours, just as my father had on warfarin. Anecdotal I know, but lots of such medical histories eventually mount up as evidence, do they not? Cardiologists follow NICE directives, but NICE board members, paid by the Pharma companies, don’t know that, like my father, I have been a bleeder all my life – they just want to replace one anticoagulant with a newer one. They’ll have a good run before it’s recognised that they work pretty much the same way. I’ll try the NO/ garlic route, having tried the pharma ones, with gout, non-stop coughing, dizziness, etc, on meds.

Dr Kendrick,
Yes, I believe I understood the logic behind the Mayo paper.
The point is that it seems as logical as David’s paper on the face of it.
Can you “have your cake and eat it too?”

You know about ACE inhibitor “escape”, in which one’s bodily systems find some other way to convert angiotensin I different from the straightforward enzyme, yeah? One’s body wants to do what it wants to do. “Normalize”.

I’m thinking that the same phenomenon might apply to anti coagulants. The state of hyper-coagulability on withdrawal that David speaks of presumes a “normalization” over time – before the withdrawal.
No?
So, one’s body accommodates the warfarin, NOAC, whatever, and you’re back to square one – susceptible to those errant little coagulations.
Or, is there no work-around of Xa inhibition.?

Gay,
Randomized Controlled Trials do their very best to find what works best on Joe Average. The meta-analyses find the lowest common denominator of these trials… good for Mr Meta-Average.

There is no such guy!

The physician that does not understand that none of his patients is Average (Certainly not you!) should be fired.

My anecdote: On apixaban for better part of three years. Gashed my finger with one of those wicked sharp Japanese pruning saws in July. A little pressure, a bandaid, a couple of months – not even a scar to show. That’s typical (Average??) for apixaban. It shouldn’t affect nosebleed propensity or fingerbleed propensity. It doesn’t act via the extrinsic factor

What you have going there seems to be something else that should be recognized as such by an observant Dr. and addressed as such.

David, as a followup to my earlier comment regarding the unimpressive RCT’s for warfarin in AF . . . your very interesting analysis confirms one of my big skepticisms about the rampant “small effectology” in “evidence based medicine”: even if you think the small benefit (here, stroke prevention) is worth the hazards of the intervention, you first have to believe the small beneficial effect is real.

That means putting a lot of trust in the research methods used to demonstrate it. Like Nortin Hadler, I just cannot believe current clinical trial methodologies are even close to good enough to merit that trust. A small effect size, the norm in “evidence based” medicine, can so easily result from chance, conscious or unconscious manipulation by researchers, bias, etc. In serious scientific fields small effects like this have to demonstrated over and over to be taken seriously.

When a medical intervention really works, all of this is moot. Every single hypothyroid person benefits from hormone replacement, for example. No statistical smoke and mirrors required to demonstrate it. Thanks for you look at all this. Except that it only deepens my already tragic level of cynicism about official medical protocols and my fervent hope I’ll remain health enough not to have to consider them.

Actually, many hypothyroid people suffer from underperforming thyroid, not NOT performing thyroid. There’s lots they can do to correct it’s function (Thyroid Secret available on the web goes into some of it). Once people start taking synthetic hormones, it shuts down their thyroid completely.

If the secret data used to justify all the cholesterol/statin small effectology at the heart of this blog ever becomes public, I doubt even those very small effects would survive much independent analysis. A very good reason for the medical establishment to let them stay secret for a good long time to come.

As a CVD-victim myself, how admirable I find your fight against the corruption of the medical research and in the health care system. It is though unbelievable for me that it must take individual MD’s like you and who are willing to pay with their license and their job to take the fight against the “criminal” influence of Big Pharma.

I think the corruption of the medical system is everywhere and here i Sweden even our renowned Karolinska Institutet (Caring for the Nobel Prize) now having been tarnished.

Thank you so much for your comments re the use of anticoagulants for anyone with AF. I was diagnosed with AF two years ago and was initially prescribed Warfarin, which I refused point blank. I had witnessed how badly it had affected friends’ day to day lives who were taking it, and decided that it was just not for me! It has since been suggested that I take Apixaban which, after much consideration, I have also refused to take.

I have felt bullied on occasion and been passed on to two other doctors in the same practice who persisted in giving me the same advice on a number of occasions. Your comments have made me feel more comfortable with my decision to avoid any
medication which I do not feel happy about taking. I hasten to add that I am already on other blood-thinners which leave me with bruising most of the time, but do not have any ill-effects that I am aware of.

Statins and beta-blockers made life a misery for some considerable time before I came upon Dr Kendrick’s blog and decided to take more control over my medication and not be frightened about doing so.

Thank you for making me feel more confident about my decision. I wish you the very best of luck with your petition.

Here is an example of how much sun Sunblocks actually provide: My daughter who lives in NY was in Mexico City for 6 weeks, then Sydney for 3 weeks over XMAS, ( 9 weeks sunny climes) on return to Brooklyn she blood-tested D3 at 30! OMG! That is the power of sunblock! She covered so much in Mex and Sydney that she sent her D3 levels thru the floor! Now she is on supplements when she could have gotten her stores built up naturally over the last 9 weeks! GRRRR SHe grew up with Slip Slop Slap, old habits die hard!

Slightly off topic : Philip Adams has a lot to answer for ! He was the advertising guru here in Oz who came up with the ‘Slip Slap Slop’ TV & radio adverts back in the 1980’s…But he’s been managing a huge organic/biodynamic farm near Newcastle for the past 20 odd years..I wonder if he still believes in the value of it now.

Really glad that someone pointed me to this blog! I followed my instinct and came off statins, and *since* then have learnt more and more about why I was right. Also omeprazole and other things, and despite ticking lots of “high risk” boxes I make my own decisions. Recently discovered I have Vit D deficiency as well as increasing blood pressure and the wrong kind of cholesterol… I was always a bookworm, not an outdoorsy type, but in the last 10-15 years have wanted to be out of doors with a desperation like an unfed addiction.

In the UK we’re even getting less sun than we used to because of climate change. Summers are greyish and dampish, winters do have blue skies on some days but it isn’t warm enough to sit out, you need to be walking. I love walking but various factors prevent me getting out there as much as I want. My question is, do “daylight lightbulbs” and other artificial lighting do any good? If so, how to choose? A sunbed is out of the question, but I save up and could stretch to a daylight lamp or two – IF I know that I’m buying the kind that will actually help. Any advice?

mand Season: Simply search “vitamin D lamps,” and you will find no end of choices in a wide variety of price ranges. I decided this winter to supplement with D3 (2,000 IU/day) rather than purchase a lamp. Between March and October I expose large areas of skin to the sun in the middle of the day, beginning with 10 minutes or so, and working my way up to an hour or more. In the blazing heat of summer I go out by about 10:00 a.m. or so to avoid the heat and still get plenty of vitamin D.

Thanks Gary. I have done that search and there are SO many – I’m not sure if you get what you pay for, or whether to get the cheapest possible… and which claims to believe, etc etc. I got overwhelmed with too much information. I do get outside as much as I can, about 20 minutes is probably my average. Usually between 11am and 3pm. But it’s very rarely warm enough to expose more than face and hands. It’s a few years since I saw any “blazing heat of summer” around here. 😉

> mand Season commented: “Really glad that someone pointed me to this blog! > I followed my instinct and came off statins, and *since* then have learnt > more and more about why I was right. Also omeprazole and other things, and > despite ticking lots of “high risk” boxes I make my own ” >

All through my life I see different weather patterns. These days – it seems anything can happen any time of the year. I think what you truly want can be prioritised above habits of convenience.
Supplementing sunlight may be worth it in some situations. If you want vit D – and it may be your body DOES – (you can get tested to check your D levels), you have to get the appropriate UV spectrum lamp. These are regulated and expensive but only need short regular sessions daily. Or you can supplement Vit D orally (but at a dose that can make a difference and with Vit K2). However, there is more to a Sum than any of its parts, and fresh air, activity (even a stroll and a sit in a sheltered place) is GETTING OUT of the box and goes under the heading ‘recreational’. It is said that at a cellular level our body is constantly recreating itself. I think Vit D is part of serving that function. If we box ourself off from our larger field of being, within artifice of our own thinking, then we may interpret the call to wholeness as a violation of our ‘peace’ and necessitate a crisis to break through to our attention.
I sense that it is not un unfed addiction that drives you – so much as a life being put aside while attending other things. The patterns of attention in ‘bad’ habits are more likely the addiction – but of course are normalised and seem ‘easy’ because we have done the learning that made the habit run for us.

I haven’t gotten UV lighting – but we have invested in NIR lighting – and appreciate it. But we have a sun facing conservatory where we can often open our doors without the wind blowing in. As for exposure risks; I say that if you make a relationship with anything, you find your own way with it.
I have hardly ever used sunscreens, especially in the last decade or so – and believe susceptibility to damage is also associated with malnourished or toxic diet and etc. Cover, and shade and timing do not have to resort to toxic chemicals.
In SE England I enjoy more sunny weather than the rest, but the stuff that is being atomised into the atmosphere in criss-cross patterns for ‘weather modification’ is also operating a ‘sunscreen’. There’s a can o’worms. Live this day well anyway – and any way that you actually and practically can.

Ever so late replying, but I have just been wandering back through Dr Kendrick’s blog, and found that I hadn’t seen notifications of some comment replies. 🙂

@binra, You say: “I think what you truly want can be prioritised above habits of convenience.
Supplementing sunlight may be worth it in some situations. If you want vit D – and it may be your body DOES – (you can get tested to check your D levels), ”

I can’t be the only person who struggles to get outside for long enough *because of health problems*. It’s these health problems that brought me to this blog and to all sorts of knowledge that I’d never have been told on the NHS. 😐 I am sure that one day, I’ll reach the tipping point where the changes I’m now making make me well enough to be able to study (this kind of thing) and to get outside more, and even to earn a living again maybe. I hate to think that if all this stuff was common knowledge, perhaps I wouldn’t have dropped out of normal life in my 30s.

Meanwhile please be aware that when you accuse us of succumbing to inconvenience, for many, many people we aren’t hoping for convenience, just doing it at all is a luxury. Being told to bother taking the trouble just rubs our noses in how far we are from keeping up with the rest of society.

This is also why researching the various lamps and finding out which are worth the expense – can’t risk buying just to try, without an income. Hence, trying to pick the brains of others who may already know how to choose.

*Not* just you personally, of course. I don’t mean this as an attack. Almost everyone forgets that one person’s lazy is another person’s huge achievement. I’m just doing my bit to spread the awareness. 🙂

There is an “inconvenience” that many don’t know about.
Sun exposure is beneficial for all sorts of reasons, but if it’s D you’re after, consider that the action of the sun on cholesterol to synthesize the D occurs on the surface of your skin. It then needs time to be absorbed.
You would need to forego showering for 48 hours to get the full benefit of a single sun exposure.
Which means, uh . . . if you sunbathe briefly every day . . . and, presumably, you’re sunbathing on warm days . . . well, your friends might notice. 🙂

gollum: It is the amount (thickness) of atmosphere that blocks UVB, so I’m afraid your method won’t work. If, on the other hand, you move to the top of Mt. Everest, you can get vitamin D every day of the year.

Sadly, I know it’s a CVD scenario familiar to some readers here (me included). But, lp(a) and it’s role will be familiar to most readers so we are ahead of the game on Dr Kendrick’s website. No mention of vitamin C deficiency (Pauling/Rath and others) in triggering the production of this repair molecule (but Big pharma could be riding to the rescue!) but Bob Harper does highlight stress and enjoying life.

Charles Gale: I saw that, too. What I wanted was a graph showing risk levels. They say that the beginning threshold of risk is 30 mg/d, and those at 150-200 have a big risk. Mine is 30.4. I’m not concerned. By the way to convert nmol/L to mg/dL divide by 2.5, and likewise to convert mg/dl to nmol/L, multiply by 2.5 (mine was in nmol/L, and it was 76, above the range of <75).

Funny in that article it refers to PCSK9 drugs that lower lp(a). However they should have also said…as covered by Dr K in an earlier blog post…that the Repatha trial was a miserable failure for hard end points. So PCSK9 inhibitors are good at lowering ldl but hopeless at saving/prolonging lives.

Craig E: I also recall in the article them implying or stating that they have no idea what lp(a) is for, or why it is high, but Dr. Kendrick explained that clearly a few Roman numerals ago. The major newspapers now have four spin doctors for every reporter, so reporters have little time to check anything.

I subscribe to another blog that I find interesting but not as researched and committed as our Dr. Malcolm, however he has just posted something that strongly supports the second of Malcolm’s 3 big ticket items for living longer…exercise. Here is the link to it and to the referenced study. Not sure how to make these active hyperlinks sorry.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5032944/
Aspects of Hyperglycemia Contribution to Arterial Stiffness and Cardiovascular Complications in Patients With Type 1 Diabetes
“one possible mechanism could be a negative effect of glucose on the arteries resulting in a stiffening of the arteries and ultimately in vascular complications”

Adequate K2 might also be beneficial in preventing ossification of arteries.

Following up on the comment from Bill from Oz the sun exposure policy in Australian schools is totally mad. In Canberra in August (Winter month with an average daytime max of 13 degrees C), the children must wear a hat for the roughly 40 minutes they are outside. What the….??? No hat…no play outside. I think I will put together an evidence brief to the Department of Education…although I am fairly sure that my efforts will be in vain. I don’t know about anyone else but when I walk out on a Winter day and the sun hits me it feels so good and uplifting. Despite having had numerous BCCs frozen off/cut out I am sun addicted (although more careful to to burn these days).

Craig E: I’ve had at least 6 BCC’s and SCC’s, all but one on the face, and removed with Moh’s surgery. For years I drove more than an hour with the sun streaming through the window to my left side in the morning and right side in the afternoon. Interestingly, all but two of these were on the right side.

Gary my BCCs have been shoulder, neck, leg and arm. I have never been overly concerned about BCCs and now I get them frozen off before they are big enough to need cutting out. I’d rather get my VitD and avoid worse outcomes. I am glad I stumbled across this blog 3 or so years ago. Makes great reading!

‘A systematic review showed that people who use a solarium before the age of 35 have a 59% greater risk of melanoma than those who do not use solariums. There is a 20% risk increase in melanoma regardless of age of first use of a solarium.'[7 https://wiki.cancer.org.au/skincancerstats/Solariums

SW, AnnaM, Gary,
We have about 25 chickens here on a 126 acre (60 ha) farm in Western Pennsylvania, USA (40 degree latitude). We raise Back Star, Red Star (brown eggs) and Ameraucanas (blue eggs). In the winter (now) we provide artificial lighting to enhance the egg laying quantities. Without the “extended daylight” the chickens will continue to lay but at a reduced rate. Since chickens can lay a fixed number of eggs in a lifetime, extending the daylight in the winter reduces the useful life span of the chickens.
Phil
Renfrew, PA USA

binra,
I’m afraid that I’m not very scientific when it comes to chickens and egg laying. Our chickens run free in the “downstairs” of a large bank barn and have 24/7 access to the outside many acres. The chickens bring themselves in at the end of the day and roost. We use florescent lights that run about 14 hours during the short day months starting at about 6am in the morning and going till about 8pm at night. I don’t have spectral or intensity information just to say that the area, when lit, is about as bright as a normal room in a house at night.
Whatever we are doing is effective as our egg production does not drop significantly during the winter. Please note that we maintain a young flock. They begin to lay at about 6 months and produce usefully until they are about 3 years old.
Phil
Renfrew, Pa USA

Thanks Phillip.
So only ‘blue end’ fluorescent lighting. Not daylight matching.
I wonder if the latter would have a better outcome but while ‘eggs is eggs’ and fluorescent tubes are much cheaper their light diet will likely stay the same. I hope they get out as well.

Excuse me if I weave some of the forum threads as they present themselves. (IE to the general attention such as it moves).

Relationships….
I have a strong sense that as we treat life, so are we in receipt of life. That many humans are lining up to suffer being factory pharmed, and used for human experimentation without the wits or the will to escape is a horrible prospect. A race to the bottom? Whence a ‘regenerate society?’.

Let there be light…
I don’t know about chickens, but Alexander Wunsch’s work indicates that fluorescent lighting is not health supporting for us – the infra red spectra balances the blue stressor. (Some ‘eco’ lighting may be the equivalent of low fat margarine). Where there is the balancing of red and blue spectra, the stressor operates FOR health. There is also something of the communication of mercury in the spectra. But there is a lot more to light than seeing where things are.

Trypt over the truth…?
We likely are aware of the benefits to the yolk, but tryptophan in egg white is a precursor for serotonin. Which may induce more agreeable, less anxious moods and less compulsion to shout at other motorists. Too much and you may die peacefully in your sleep while you passengers scream. Relaxing can kill.

Supplementing….
But nutrition – as I see it – is incredibly complex as a manual management of balancing systems that likely include linkages of which we are not even aware. So I see the supplementing exploration as one of those attempts to understand that leads to the recognition that we cannot possible understand. A natural humility then finds a natural balance because life was never designed to be lived scientifically.

Motivation…
In all cellular or embodied life the movement to pleasure and away from pain is the primary motivation. You could substitute nutrient and toxin for the same meaning at cellular leval. But human minds are a complex of definitions by association that operate a filtering system of meanings to the extent we can – and often do – choose pain and deny pleasure. Operate self-destructively, foul our own nest.

When growing up in NL, Canada, in primary school, we students were issued with a bottle of cod liver oil; certainly, no vit. D in the Canadian winter sun. Some bottles got accidentally broken on the way home. Not mine. The Inuit got their vit. D from eating the livers of the fish/animals they consumed.

I subscribe to a newsletter re Vit. D and appreciate its info.; however, I am timid when it comes to supplementing with a Vit. D supplement, e.g. an oil like olive oil or lanolin which is irradiated. I know I am Vit. D deficient having had a urine test and despite living in a sunny climate year around. https://grassrootshealth.net/

Deaths and illness from overdosing Vit D?
Deaths and illness from iatrogenic ‘health care’?
I don’t need the exact figures to make an informed decision!
There are studies I haven’t a handle on at present that used astronomical dosage of Vit D over significant periods of time – with no ill effect. Unless shown otherwise, I lean to Vit D being ‘demonised’ without substance of fact and installed into the mainstream medical mind. As a result, even those who know the official ‘recommended dosage’ is too low to effect significant help, are unlikely to openly share what they believe is more effective.
Just as with sunshine, just as with medical advice on anything, a host of corporately effected inhibitions and disincentives keep everyone in line by repeated editing to whittle away, rephrase and effectively neuter or dilute any report that would upset business as usual.
But regardless what I choose for myself, you are the arbiter of your own choice and if you have fears,but also obviously some attraction to considering Vit D as a factor in your wellbeing, then continue to educate yourself as part of gaining the clarity with which to stand in what you choose – and of course review your own experience alongside that of others.

Yes that is probably enough to be helpful.
The vit D issue is – I believe – deliberately sown with disinformation, because in adequate levels it reduces the incidence of sickness and consequently works against the pharmaceutical capture. Levels indicated vary hugely – ie 400 through to 5000 iu. Just as with sun exposure, there is professional reticence to openly recommend what would otherwise be suggested. The Vitamin D council suggests 5000 with upper limit of 10,000 iu daily. But there are all sorts of details:https://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/how-do-i-get-the-vitamin-d-my-body-needs/
Setting standards that then get locked in is rarely science.
I read that because Vit D was originally associated with bone health, that the serum level was moved from 20-30 because no further bone benefit was associated with going higher. So if this is the case, one facet of vitD determined a level without regard to other now known benefits.
My skim of Vit D side effects did not convince me that these are significant. The official line suggests that to reach such adverse reaction would require over 10000iu for many months. Looking at the list of symptoms is looking at signs that would allow easing off – and there is blood testing to support a higher dose regime.
I have read that very high vitD has been used under fancy made up names – and no doubt pricing – as cancer drugs.

I agree Bill but I would just like to make one other point which some seem to be missing with their compartmentalized view of choice and industries. These seemingly disparate industries work synergystically (spelling ?) , the Pharma industry will be happy to support the food industry because they keep people sick. The food industry will reward those hospitals that keep coke on the corridors because they keep people sick. That does not mean coke rep walks into the Hallamshire and slaps a cheque on the directors table but if you follow the money. Big Pharma and Big food are the same people

Smartersig
I suspect that Hallamshire hospital received á visit from á rep who said
Look we will put vending machines on every floor, stock them up, and give you a certain percentage of the take. The hospital, like many institutions was one war behind, and was still fighting the healthy fats battle, not realising that sugar was now seen, by some, as a bigger danger. In addition thanks to the UK government’s war on the NHS, the hospital is strapped for cash, and needs all the money it can get.
On the subject of sugar, have you ever looked at the sugar content of children’s cereals?

The NHS is not strapped for cash in fact it is over funded. The problem is it is oversubscribed. We could solve the financial health crisis within a decade if the population went LCHF or WFPB either would yield huge benefits enough to solve the problem. We are oversubscribed because we prescribe sickness

Smartersig
I take your point, let us say that the NHS is underfunded for what it is called upon to do. I have often noticed that patients tend to demand to be cured with drugs or procedures, and that simple grandmother’s remedies or self help is excluded in the minds of many of the sick.
Perhaps I am lucky, but I consulted my doctor twice last year, once for the flu vaccine (please nobody bother with comments) and once to look at my blood test.

smartersig: Not the same people, but on the same team. My own view is what would be called here in the U.S. the libertarian one. I oppose both bans and sin taxes. You have only to look at the increasing girth of U.S. schoolchildren to be horrified by the ban on whole milk in schools. This benefits only the mainstream dairy industry, who make greater profit from the cream they remove than from the milk they sell (even conventional whole milk here has a portion of the cream removed).

Finally I can not only understand your comment, I agree with you.
D3 has been maligned as a supplement since the 1930’s despite having no ill effects. In 2014 I read Jeff Bowles book “The Miraculous Results of extremely High does of D3”. Since then I have been taking a goodly amount every day. Currently I take a 10,000 IU capsule each day. At one point last year I had a blood test which included D3. It was 400. And no ill effects at all.

Well there you go Bill – we have both read the same book and are both taking 10,000 iu daily without noticing any unwanted effects. As mentioned in the book, I had a slightly racy reaction that disappeared on changing our vit K2 source.
I cant list all the issues I haven’t had as a result… 😉
And don’t know if its is hugely significant or not. I’m alive here and now – and have not had significant relationship with pharma over the most part of my not unchallenging adult life. So as someone who never took anything for anything, it felt weird taking supplements at first but worthy of the exploration and discovery in light of uncovering an awareness of such lies, deceits and general poisoning/denaturing in our current social milieu.

But I also have a sense of embracing who I am and that to some degree means (for me) opening to what is going on for me currently at another level than assuming health is an absence of symptoms. The suppression of symptoms is perhaps something that loads up a jack-in-the-box for later in life.
So I open into what comes up in the trust that it – or indeed I – seek release or reconciliation. Peace is a quality of acceptance for self and other – in my sense of gratitude for being.

Binra, you wrote ” Well there you go Bill – we have both read the same book and are both taking 10,000 iu daily without noticing any unwanted effects.”
Yes no unwanted ill effects…Jeff Bowles presents a strong case in his book that back in the 1920-30’s US pharmceutical companies were alarmed at the ‘healthiness’ of people taking large doses of D2 ( There was no D3 available then ) a natural substance which could not be patented.
Jeff suggests that they mounted a scare campaign & persuaded the USA government to restrict it’s availability…

I think he is correct. It is hard to obtain here in Oz in the dose I take from any pharmacy. But the web is a wonderful tool. We can avoid them completely.

( PS ..The later lines of your comment wandered off into the clouds for me…And as we all know who have flown in cloud, we cannot see anything at all.)

Interesting study that popped up on Mark Sisson’s blog: https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2017231
In conclusion, we showed that triglycerides cross the BBB and induce central receptor resistance to leptin and insulin, with resulting effects on feeding and cognition. These results suggest that targeting triglyceride levels in blood could be a strategy for treating obesity and the cognitive problems associated with CNS resistance to leptin and insulin.

Insulin resistance is a very complex phenomernon with many facets some of which are regulatory and some pathological. In this case perhaps you could think about it thus: If you have high levels of energy supply molecules circulating then it is a very good idea that some cells should become insulin resistant, as a way of turning away the excess. It is like a sophisticated battery charging system. You want less current going into cells that are already charged. Battery cells or human cells.

Eating a diet which is high in fats and also high in sugars/starches is probably not a good idea anyway.

Thank you Joe. This is exactly what I have been banging on about for some time. I recommend that everybody reads this article by Jason Fung. It will stop me having to write on this topic again, at least for a while.

Jason Fung is certainly changing our traditional views on diabetes. The link was really great reading!

Still it surprises me that I have not seen any comments so far on what Professor Roger Unger has to say about the blood sugar regulation relating to the insulin/glucagon, beta/alfa cells juxtaposition in the pancreas. Unger’s views fit rather well with what Jason Fung advocates and I find them very intriguing myself.

I apologize again for posting something mostly unrelated:
do all NSAR now cause MI and stroke? We know aspirin has a net benefical effect which is down to its anticoagulant and antiinflammatory action as well as probably a few less researched effects. It stands to reason that other NSAR, which are at least anti-inflammatory even if not antocoagulant should also exert some beneficial effect on the endothelium. This article seems to condemn all NSARs:

translated quote:
NSARs have been known to cause stomach issues for a long time, but it is only recently that we have learned that they may promote mycardial infarction and stroke says Tania Schink, head of the group for pharmaceutical risk reasearch at the Leibniz institue for Prevention Research and Epidemiology. Schink is part of a worldwide project that has already taken a closer look at side effects of NSARs. MI and stroke, Schink says, aren’t just long term effects. Patients with CVD may take harm even from short term usage and are already counseled by many doctors not to take any medication from this class.

Was this a one off blood test you had? Don’t forget, a one off result/test is a snapshot in time. Further testing may provide a clearer picture of your cholesterol levels. And on the subject of testing, further to Philip Thackray’s link to Dr Mike Eades’ blog on the Feldman protocol, here’s another link to another Dr Mike Eades blog:

Interesting info on how they measure LDL cholesterol. If you have had a full lipid profile done, and have really low trigs, you may want to put the results into a Friedewald/Iranian converter and get a more accurate, lower LDL reading. Better still, get a direct measure from your blood if possible.

Also, not sure if you mean familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) when you say hypercholesterolemia. A genetic test is needed for the diagnosis of FH. Zoe Harcombe has blogged on this – visit her website and put familial hypercholesterolemia into the search engine.

I, too, have high (apparently!) total cholesterol (double figures mmol/L) and been diagnosed as FH based on just the blood test/high tot chol. So, I had a genetic test done and the result was not FH: “the laboratory has not been able to identify a gene alteration that is known to be associated with FH”.

I presume this is a reference to either vapour trails and/or chem trails?

Despite living about 15/20 miles from both Gatwick and Heathrow, in the last couple of years the flights flying over my house are pretty much 24/7 and low enough to see and hear. Never used to be any – all very sly and subtle how it builds up.

And linking this comment to the theme of this blog part 44, it makes being outdoors very unpleasant from a noise point of view and the pollution issue too.

But people must have their holidays! Reminds me of a sticker I saw on a lorry which said something like: don’t get impatient because I’m in front of you and slowing you down – you are the ones ordering the parcels.

There’s an interesting chapter in Barry Groves book “Trick and Treat: How ‘healthy eating’ is making us ill” where he discusses sun rays and vitamin D. Here’s a short snippet:

“The polyunsaturated fat connection. Since the 1960s, linoleic acid and vegetable margarines and cooking oils that contain it, have been shown time and again to increase the risk of many types of cancer, including skin cancers. Drs B. S. and L. E. Mackie, working on Australia’s Sunshine Coast, have a great deal of experience in skin cancers. As long ago as 1988 they said: ‘In view of the work of Black and Erickson in mice and our own work in humans, we believe that human subjects who are at high risk of melanomas and other solar-induced forms of skin cancer should be advised to be moderate in their intake of dietary polyunsaturated fats.’”

He also tells of a living in Singapore in the 60s as a fair-skinned chap.

“Nobody used a sunscreen. If we used anything at all –which most of the time we did not –it was a well-shaken mixture of coconut oil and vinegar, a concoction used at the time by naturists. We smelled like a fried fish shop, but my skin never burnt while I lived there. Today, it seems, all that has changed. Why? What has happened in the last 40 years?”

Wayne Hutchings – likewise, growing up in southern Australia in the sixties we only ever used coconut oil. Often there would be someone at the beach with a spray gun who would cover you with the stuff for a small fee. Coconut oil is a saturated mct too – skin seems to do well with saturated fat for a ‘moisturiser’.

Joe, exercise guru’s MI convinced me that diet will now be #1 on my list of things to get right. It is relatively easy to correct a fatty liver or metabolic syndrome with diet, exercise not required. Practice healthy sun exposure and healthy smoking (if such a thing exists).

My concept of exercise now (78 yr) is to move in order to keep the lymph from stagnating. Purchased a rebounder for my birthday and keep it in the living room. Use it a few minutes multiple times a day.

Andy S: Thanks. One technique I use which is very good for the spine (I have no back pain) is stretching it. I stand with my back against the wall, raise up on tiptoes, plant my head against the wall, and leave it planted while slowly lowering my heels to the ground. About 15-30 seconds of this. Easy, no equipment needed.

Gary, it is winter here and only outdoor exercise is shovelling snow. Apparently bouncing up and down increases G force on spine and that is what builds bone mass. Also discs need movement to keep them hydrated.

Andy S: Thanks. Good information. Movement keeps them lubricated. I’m a real fan, too, of building core strength to aid the back. Pushups are the easiest way to do this, and anyone can do them. Mark’s Daily Apple has a good tutorial.

We tested the idea with a cheap metal spring thing – and found we adopted it (used it) then gave that away and invested in a bungy cord sprung rebounder. The difference is huge and well worth the extra cost – much more flexible as well as being quiet.
I feel part of the idea is getting out of your head and opening to life felt bodily. The body as a concept is different from the feeling of being alive. I don’t need a lot of stimulation or targets and pain barriers to feel good – or rather to feel the body feeling life. Even as I type, the body responds to the awareness in which it rests. Integrative awareness is very different to a ‘dalek’s eye view of the world’. I associate it with the heart.

Joe, agree about trying to outrun a bad diet does not work. Also trying to outsmart a bad diet might not also work.The gut microbiota controls the brain when it comes to nutrition. Fundamentally we are just a long feeding tube. The brain has evolved too far and is now
creating damaging stress.

AH Notepad & binra, re. how cells communicate. A layperson’s point of view.
Appears that all life forms can communicate with each other, plant to plant, plant to soil bacteria and fungi, microbe with microbe, and gut microbiome with the CNS. This is normally a symbiotic relationship. Each cell in our body is in constant communication. Upsetting the balance upsets the communication. A unicellular organism communicates with it’s environment via chemical signals. Multicellular organisms also use the chemical communication system but introduced a nervous system for internal communication. Binra, you mention a cosmic connection. This could be equivalent to the quantum nature of life.

What has this to do with stress? Stress can cause unbalanced communication with HPA axis, gut/brain axis, gut/liver axis, gut/immune axis etc..

Look at the baby’s development. It has to balance self-consciousness with the gut function – for self-consciousness is an inhibitory reflex. It takes a while to get the hang of not getting in our own way. And if you get that you get that we are a channel of many levels of communication, assimilation and elimination and that as you become conscious that you are in fact getting in your own way – you can relax.
Consider the ‘chakras’ as levels of consciousness that are all going on all the time but the shifting and balancing between them is billions of time per second. Ok then – faster than the thinking inhibition allows awareness of.
Our most primitive state is one of overwhelm in both wonder and inhibition.
So I agree with you – but at a Cosmic level. The instrument or channel is not an end in itself but a means for life to communicate through. Whenever life communicates through use we know joy in life – and whenever we succeed in believing we can possess and capture such joy, we make an addictive or needy personality that initiates a sense of private self gratification. Constipation is toxic and diarrhoea dumps nutrients. What you want is a number three! or 2-4 (Bristol chart).

– Bob Harper was the picture of health, a celebrity fitness trainer who whipped people into shape each week on the hit TV show ‘The Biggest Loser’… But last February, Mr. Harper, 52, suffered a massive heart attack at a New York City gym and went into cardiac arrest.

– Sandra Revill Tremulis was a health-conscious medical device executive who moonlighted as an aerobics instructor, followed a strict diet, and maintained 16 percent body fat, equivalent to that of an elite athlete… had a 95 percent blockage in one of her coronary arteries.

They say hard work never killed anyone. They lied! These people are typical examples, striving to achieve, driving themselves into the ground. Now they want to lecture me about Lp(a). They should shut up and listen to me. I didn’t get a heart attack, so obviously I know more about it than they do.

Here is my advice: Go to a game reserve and look at the animals. Really study them for several hours each, don’t just note them and drive by. See the king of the jungle? He’s hard to spot. His camouflage is amazingly good, and he doesn’t move much. He mostly spends his day snoozing in the shade of a thorn tree, digesting his last meal. And those donkeys in the hi-viz jackets, the zebras? They stand around munching grass all day. They don’t exert themselves.

The only creatures fighting each other and striving to get more than the next guy are the vultures squabbling over a carcass. Do you want to be a vulture? I hope not. And what happens to a vulture who manages to eat the whole carcass? He’s too heavy to fly, so he becomes easy prey.

I think we were put on earth for a purpose. I don’t know what it is, but I think a study of the natural world provides pointers to the right direction to take. And a heart attack is a sign you’re on the wrong path.

Vit C -as far as I am aware – is not held in reserves excepting while ‘passing through’ and insofar as it gains access to where it may be useful. Your body uses what you need and flush the rest. Hence ensuring dietary intake is wise.

Martin Back: How right you are that a study of the natural world is instructive. I met up with a robin on the trail this summer, at a time when there would either have been eggs or young in the nest. She exhibited all the normal behaviors one would expect: feigning injury, attempting to draw me away from the nest. A few weeks later I saw her again, at the same spot on the same trail, and she paid no attention to me.

My bet is he was on a high carb diet, had a stressful lifestyle as a celb., and Lp(a) fro sure a problem and my other bet is lots of Cholesterol Remnants or Atherogenic Index of Plasma… see Ddave Feldman’s work http://cholesterolcode.com/

While working though the references on an olive oil meta study I came across this interesting one. There has been comments before as to what is the Med diet, does it exists. Well who cares I am only interested in what your med diet is or in this case what the Attica study med diet is and does it offer any benefits. Warning, read with caution if you are meat eater (squirells excluded of course)

I don’t see anything in there that truly implicates meat as a negative factor in regard to inflammation. You seem bizarrely determined to show that your diet is correct, and those leaning more toward keto are wrong.

There is plenty in there to chew on whether you are a meat lover or not, but on the subject of meat

“However, it could be argued that the benefits of the Mediterranean diet on atherosclerotic markers are confounded by several social or lifestyle factors, like the presence of physical activity or the absence of smoking habits. Therefore, we repeated the data analysis after controlling for age, gender, smoking, physical activity, financial and education status, body mass index, presence of hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, and family history of coronary heart disease. The multiple regression analysis confirmed the aforementioned associations (Table 4). Furthermore, an additional multivariate analysis revealed that consumption of fruits (Hotelling’s trace = 3.7, p < 0.001), vegetables (Hotelling's trace = 3.4, p = 0.02), and moderate alcohol (Hotelling's trace = 5.4, p = 0.001) were inversely associated with the spectrum of the investigated inflammatory markers, whereas consumption of meat (Hotelling's trace = 4.1, p = 0.02) and increased alcohol intake (Hotelling's trace = 5.2, p = 0.001) had the most positive effect on the investigated biomarkers, after controlling for the previous set of covariates and factors."

Hi Kid, I did Dr Shawn Baker’s ( Orthopedic Surgeon) 90 day meat trial, my CRP ( inflammation) was was 1.9 before Low Carb High Fat Change, at start of all meat it was 1.4 at the end of the 90 day trial it was 0.8! I posted all my labs with Shawn Baker. Virtually every bio marker was improved. My meat diet included ribeyes, lobster, prawns, lamb, offal, goat, … virtually Zero Carb and all meats were included. no plants. I was very amazez and hae remained pretty close to Zero Carb since the trial. Interesting Serum Ferritin went down, Crp down, Cholesterol ratios improved ie trig/hdl etc. Troponin 2 … you name it was improved or remained the same! I did not die of scurvy. Glucose and Carbs v Vitamin C compete with each other and meat and offal actually has enough Vit C! All in the name of science!

I do not have a problem with any of those markers Gary so I am not sure what good it would do me. The only markers I have had trouble with are Homocysteine, now OK with B12 and Folate and LPLAC 2 which has dropped a bit but still too high.Even if it dropped that I would not want to effect some possibly irrelevant marker at the expense of other problems.

I am for sure a meat eater on strict LCHF and in ketosis since some years now. When I was in touch with the health care system a few years ago regarding my CVD “innumerable” tests were taken, not least on the inflammation markers, and basically everything was just perfect.

Curious how some folks not yet joined the rest of us over in the different playing field as suggested by Dr K on a quite a few occasions. I guess food & diet of one kind or another is an obsession for some folks. 🙂

From – The BMJ: leading general medical journal with an archive back to 1840.
Subclinical magnesium deficiency is a common and
under-recognised problem throughout the world. Importantly,
subclinical magnesium deficiency does not manifest
as clinically apparent symptoms and thus is not easily
recognised by the clinician. Despite this fact, subclinical
magnesium deficiency likely leads to hypertension,
arrhythmias, arterial calcifications, atherosclerosis, heart
failure and an increased risk for thrombosis.http://openheart.bmj.com/content/openhrt/5/1/e000668.full.pdf

Randall: Thank you very much for that link. One of out favorite scientists. One thing that I found concerning is that those on long-term diuretics (as I was) can develop Mg deficiency, which raises BP. How often do doctors advise a Mg supplement with a diuretic prescription?

Randal, I take Magnesium tablets each night. So that’s an interesting article to me. Thanks for the link ! Also open access so I am printing it of to go through in detail later…
Have you ever read Dr Dennis Goodman’s book ” Magnificent Magnesium” ( Square One Publishers, 2014.) ? Goodman recommends Magnesium for CVD patients also.

PS It’s important to take thr right type of Magnesium supplement > Magnesium Oxide is dead cheap but cannot be absorbed & gives us all diarhorrea ! Magnesium citrate or orarate is the way to go as both are easily absorbed. .

Eric,
I have always been suspicious of the medical model of radiation that only worries about total yearly dose.
A CT or PET scan gives you all the radiation at once, whereas those people in the apartment building took (if I got it right) about one CT’s worth of radiation over a year’s time. Since these radiations are energies, why assume that a slow gentle exposure is the same as a big hit? It’s like you could tap your bumper against a wall going 5 miles per hour any number of times, but hit that wall once at 60 and it’s a whole other game.

smartersig said… “How can you be unhappy for drug companies to mismanage us but happy that hospitals do the same promoting coca cola and Dr Pepper. If hospital introduced cigarette vending machines would that be OK because it is all part of free choice and we do not want hospitals managing our choices ?.”

…and selling the freely available substance that is known by many people as whole milk.

I should not need to spell it out smartersig. Because you are apparently having difficulty with understanding the issue at hand, I will do so. There is a world of difference between breaking the law for profit (creating fake medical journals to sell more pharmaceutical products) and selling a product (whole milk) which is not illegal… yet.

I don’t want (nor do I need) any clinician, hospital, benevolent organisation, or any other body with a vested interest in the outcome of their own deliberations to manage my choices. Good health is a partnership between the patient and the treating clinician. It can NEVER be a partnership when the power to choose is removed from the patient.

You also have missed the point which was being made by a very large country mile. At no point in the history of the in-hospital Costa coffee house franchise… were the Costa company promoting or attempting to push whole milk onto an unsuspecting or unwilling populace. It was merely a choice to be made by people/customers such as myself; who have not bought into the cholesterol/heart disease hypothesis.

I suggest that stocking a product in a shop does not necessarily require the stockist to promote the item. They need only stock it and sell it to willing purchasers. It does not imply agreement in any particular with the item sold or the company ethos of the manufacturing company.

The thrust of my argument was not around Milk, on that topic I made a brief mention of why they may have removed it. My main gripe is with Cocal Cola, Dr Pepper etc sold on every ward in the Sheffield Hallamshire hospital and other hospitals around the UK. Now I am going to put this in very strong terms, I understand you choice argument on Milk and would actually agree with it as Milk is a more contentious subject with some pro and some con arguments. But anybody who defends the widespread sale of Coca cola in hospitals after they have been politely asked to remove it is an idiot of the highest order. You see the people who want you to buy this crap need to appeal to some sort of vulnerable nerve that will bypass the argument that the stuff will lead to an early death. They do this by suggesting that in the land of the free and the brave your freedom is eroded if we allow health centres to dictate what we can buy on their premises. You are better off with a fully functioning sense of freedom even if it means less than fully functioning liver. Only the brain dead and half asleep members of society of course fall for this marketing speak. If I had a pound for every time some highly educated dumb person responded with an ‘erosion of freedom’ argument on this issue of how the health service is killing us I would be able to at least by a controlling share of coca cola (Warren Buffet dont worry just exaggerating a little).

I still favour education vs. legislation. Freedom also includes the freedom to do stupid, an/or, dangerous things. Such as the freedom to climb Mt Everest, which carries a one in thirteen chance of death – for each expedition. I think that makes it more dangerous that drinking a can of Coke?

Of course. However smoking, unlike most other things, has a direct effect on other people – who are forced to breathe in the smoke. So I would not support smoking in hospitals, or smoking in other public places. Do what you like to yourself, but don’t harm others at the same time.

I would re-iterate that banning is always an easy option, and it fulfils a deep seated need present in many people to control the actions of other people. However, the history of banning things e.g. prohibition, or the war drugs, has not been a resounding success. If there has been a war on drugs, for example, then I thinks drugs won.

Malcolm you are extrapolating my point to try and make a point. I did not suggest prohibition on cigs nor would I ever. What I am saying is organisations supposadly invested in health should take a stand and say what you do in your own time is your business but we will not endorse it by selling the stuff to you. It never fails to shock me when I find doctors who dont agree with this stance

It becomes a short step from once stance to another. It always shocks me when doctors refuse to treat people who smoke. As doctors we are not here to enforce our standards, or beliefs, on anyone. We can try to convince – and I am all for that. But once you step onto the banning bandwagon – where do you stop? Ban everything you disagree with, and consider unhealthy? Then, most authorities would ban sunbathing, and cholesterol and saturated fats. Then you can move onto mandatory health checks and mandatory statin prescribing – and suchlike.

‘If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.’ Thomas Jefferson.

Then we will all have to be content with doctors telling us lies about nutrition (attend a cardiac rehab session and weep) whilst encouraging us to consume coke. Schoo,s and Universities are the same, get them on the road to obesity and sickness whilst diminishing their abilitiy to think. I know I was a University lecturer for 25 years

Sorry, that is irrelevant as there is legislation prohibiting smoking in any building with public access, and the hospitals now even prohibit anywhere on hospital grounds. If you want cigarette machines you will have to get the legistlaton changed. But then I suppose you meant something else.

smartersig: Why couldn’t people just bring their own smokes? Do they still have vending machines for them? I well remember my first flight on a commercial jet. It was 1960, TWA, LA to Philly, and on each and every meal tray, for adults and children alike (they fed you in those days!) was a little packet of four cigarettes. How many remember when smoking on airplanes was commonplace? I’ve been told that this still occurs on Air France, although the EU mommy-state may have stamped it out by now. Whereas someone working in a hospital will require food at some point in their shift, and why shouldn’t they have choice?

Are you getting entangled in what is none of your business?
What the hospital administration does is likely to contract with a private company to provide services. In that contract will be some definition of such services. I doubt that ‘healthy food’ is in these conditions – but you are entitled to communicate individually or by a collective action with either the contractor or the hospital to register your concerns. They may or may not comply with what you want but they will have the issue brought to awareness. the way you communicate may make a difference to the outcome.

The role of hospitals may be supposed to be helping people, but they run as a business and that may determine a lot of decisions. But if enough public feeling is brought to bear and more so if professions support the call, then there may be a willingness to bring real food in as an option. For very many, junk food is simply food and the concerns of others are not theirs. Good luck with your campaign.

“Am I alright with blah blah blah” is irrelevant because it is not my business. What matters my opinion? In order to teach by example, I have to get off my trip of thinking that their salvation depends on doing or not doing something I regard as unwise. This neediness is picked up by others. If you frighten or hype people up you may get an outer compliance, but it will not be their own willing acceptance, of their own choosing. The idea of making people behave a certain way is invalidating their own capacity to grow. However, harming others is unacceptable behaviour under the law and insofar as companies are found to act negligently in the light of inside knowledge of harm, there is – I believe a case to bring. Whether any authorities are willing to challenge corporate power may be another issue. Civil actions may be possible as a class action. But if you have a strong feeling, it may be that you are called to act – in some way that you immediately can. But are you just arguing ‘principles’ and don’t actually have enough concern to convert to action?
The medical establishment may have many dedicated people but institutionally the whole thing is set on principles that prevent it serving purpose (the people’s health needs).
What anyone else ‘should do’ is armchair politics. What am I doing is my business. and in who I meet and interact with I attend what is mine. Entanglement is often entered for some personal payoff, but then you cant get out.

To fellow posters/readers
Don’t read what you don’t want to read and then complain about having to read it!
(Unless you insist of course 😉

to smartersig (and all)
So economics is the nature of your business? Make a list of all the waste or mispending of you taxes – and I’ll see where hospitals making money from junk food sales ranks.

Economic factors are shaping the blind uncaring system we (both) decry.

Personally I feel to put first things first and trust that the economy arising from that is a true accounting – because I put truth first. An economy built on lies is a negative economy and isn’t that clear now? Truth and freedom go hand in hand.

My sense of true freedom is contrary to the economically driven (manipulated) technocracy – that makes vast (private) ‘profits’ from negative conditions – such as sickness and war and so protects and nurtures those conditions; (sickness and war).
I lament that there is not a real human culture of support for human being – as do you. I believe it is a hospital administrations business and accountability as to what they do regarding food and drink sold on their premises. I invited you to address them on this. I suspect that while the Corporately aligned medical profession and Media hold the door open, the malpractice persists as corporately owned consumption. Although I feel an informed choice is denied by mainstream media and education. it remains available to anyone who breaks free of the spell enough to start to question.
Many who wake to being lied to get angry – for the outcome of false advice and false treatment is a nightmare that cannot be communicated to those still running on false narrative. Perhaps you are angry at hospitals selling junk food. But nutrition is not part of the medical system except in a very few particular instances – being displaced by the pinnacle of pharmaceutical evolution (sic).

I am aware that deceits need to be exposed and where possible held to account – but I don’t see that as the core of regaining health (ie: when we have sorted out the corruption we can live again). Rather I feel to grow what works in whatever way you can. And I mean what works as an expression of health and wholeness – and not what promises to work as a political agenda.

If we disinvest of the false – we make way for the true. If I went to visit anyone in hospital it would not occur to me to expect real food to be available there. So I would bring it with me. Assuming I could afford it after paying the parking charges!
But three years back my daughter was in for a premature birth by caesarian and was appalled at the deadness of the hospital food. People still believe it is a health care service. There are still genuine and devoted people who care but they are under a system that is a sickness management service – and the definitions for sickness are widening all the time.

You can argue all you want that others here should agree with you – but as I see it, you made your view known and others theirs and it is really about mandating ‘health’ or educating ‘health’ and not about what hospitals SHOULD DO. It may seems easier to control people. Just make more and more laws to enforce the ‘good’. But there lies all the seeds of chaos – though of course the prevailing fear is the opposite. Treat people with respect and you meet a different person. Not in order to manipulate a better experience. But because we know when we are seen and acknowledged. Though we may not trust it at first.

The primary issue I feel is opening communication at the level of the heart. Without this the head ‘rules’ as the suppression of the feeling being. Hence the need to break out with drink or drugs etc – including sweet addiction to comfort foods and sugar hits. A suppressed nature comes out ‘chaotically’ at first if given permission.

A connected sense of self in life is in a sense already happy and discerns what aligns with joy in life, genuine obligation to self and others and that which robs us of our appreciation. But it will likely dismiss intuitions that counter the prevailing social mores and presume others (experts) know better. Blind trust is not an extension of trust, but more a blank cheque already signed.

smartersig, I think you might find most, if not all, objections to your original comment were to do with removing whole milk. Indeed, you went on to imply it is signigicant in the development of prostate cancer. If this was not the case, it illustrates why being clear in posts is important. I don’t remember Dr. Pepper being mentioned in that post, now here we find this mentioned as a primary product to be removed.

It can be a little tricky, they may have been on seperate threads but were connected by a common theme, should hospitals be banning items eg coke, dr pepper, milk …. etc.
I was simply explaining why hospitals may have taken the stance on Milk namely the research showing a connection with amongst other things prostrate cancer. Now if people want to take a balance of research and come to the conclusion that milk is fine then OK but that does not mean the negative research has gone away. Personally I dont use the stuff I prefer to follow the good advice offered on here by another poster namely that we should all look at those smart animals in the wild taking it easy and by the way drinking only their own milk up to an age when they can tolerate solid food

Smatersig, there is an alternative explanation. The stuff is legal & addictive. Perhaps they stock these crappy high sugar drinks to prevent folks there getting agitated from withdrawal as a hospital ‘safety’ measure ?

‘If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.’ Thomas Jefferson.

Probably a misquote, Doc. But it’s something he would have said today. 🙂

These are usual tactics amongst supporters of the system. Tell them that forcing removing coke machines from hospitals is one step from banning coke all together and creating a dangerous ghetto fed black market. The whole of med research will tell you that Coke and Dr Pepper are bad, just dont contradict that by selling and profiting off the stuff.

smartesig: In the BMJ Open Heart magnesium paper they discuss the deleterious effect on Mg status and electrolyte balance from consuming phosphate-rich drinks such as colas. Perhaps these hospitals are ensuring job security?

I accept that you have an opinion on the matter of what is sold in hospital shops and how complicit the shop owner may be in providing a particular line of goods, by dint of them offering the same goods for sale. I don’t accept opinions as fact and because opinions can never be wrong; I find their debate pointless to the point of tedium.

Value judgements in debate are equally undesirable and you declaiming that people like me, who happen to request rational arguments are propounded; concerning the sale of items in hospital shops which you happen to dislike, are not welcome in logical debate. I am not an idiot of the highest order and I would prefer not to be attacked personally just because I have a little difficulty in understanding your position.

As a thoughtful person, I examine an issue and arrive at my own conclusions. I refuse to be influenced by advertising copy. I ignore large tracts of medical research; which often serves little purpose but to support advertorial material in medical journals. My decisions are based upon my observations and discussions with people who can and do add to the sum total of medical knowledge.

Per smartersig: “brain dead and half asleep members of society” ??? Is this necessary? Can you not formulate an argument without descending into insulting those with whom you would disagree? How do I know that you are not insensate? Would it have any effect on the argument you are proposing?

“Highly educated dumb person” Really? It is a major weakness in your debating style and removes the attention from any sound arguments you may wish to put to me. I am saying that the insertion of these irrelevant non sequiturs is a major distraction from anything useful which you may have to say to me. I don’t hear it because I am struggling to get past the needless vitriol and invective.

I value my own freedom to choose very highly. I will always defend your freedom to choose just as vehemently as I defend my own freedom.

Please respond to this post in a manner which signifies that you wish this specific subject material to be debated further. I am requesting that you leave the insults, personal opinions and childish responses behind you.

Apologies Jeff, you are quite right. I was having a bad day and I think the frustration of people twisting or misunderstanding my points got the better of me. For example I am talking about the hospital not the outside contracted shop selling coke via every available space on a wall. Although having said that I would ban it in both

I think one is either libertarian, or authoritarian – or somewhere along that spectrum. My entire political, medical, scientific and personal ethos is highly libertarian. In my world, people can do whatever they wish to do, so long as it does not damage others. My job as a doctor is to sort out the damage that people can do to themselves. Smoking sits in an uncomfortable place here, as smoking can affect other people, and it can also end up causing health problems that can cost vast sums of money – for the NHS, and other healthcare systems. On the other hand, the taxes paid for by smoking, probably cover all the costs of treatment. A study in the Czech republic concluded that smoking was probably good the economy. Smokers paid more taxes, and lived shorter lives, so their pensions were far cheaper to provide. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1120774/

As you can imagine this ‘humans are all economic units and nothing more’ philosophy did not go down well.

Hypomagnesaemia (abnormally low levels of magnesium in their blood) can impair the release of nitric oxide from the coronary endothelium, Since nitric oxide is both a vasodilator and an inhibitor of platelet aggregation, this makes magnesium supplementation a promising therapy in the treatment of hypertension and coronary artery disease. Indeed, magnesium therapy may enhance prostacyclin release from the vascular wall. Magnesium deficiency and magnesium depletion in soft tissues can cause calcifications in the heart, liver and Magnesium deficiency may be a leading cause of kidney disease skeletal muscles. A greater intake of magnesium is associated with having a lower risk of an elevated coronary artery calcification score, Magnesium treatment for 3 months in patients with ischaemic heart disease increases the apolipoprotein A1:apolipoprotein B ratio by 13%, decreases the apolipoprotein B concentrations by 15%, and decreases very low- density lipoprotein concentrations by 27%. Magnesium supplementation significantly decreases total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and total cholesterol: high density lipoprotein ratio. ‘…low heart muscle magnesium may contribute to sudden death after myocardial infarction. intravenous magnesium to healthy volunteers significantly inhibits both ADP-induced platelet aggregation by 40% and binding of fibrinogen or surface expression of GMP-140 by 30%. http://openheart.bmj.com/content/openhrt/5/1/e000668.full.pdf

Dr K
Could you please republish your comment about diet say every 50 posts, so it might just be taken in. It is said that when learning a foreign language, you have to see a new word seven times times to remember it. Would that the same applied to diet!

Could you be more specific about supplementation?
There are so many forms, so many doses.
Some (The time release form I take) you just don’t know if you’re getting any at all.
Some go straight through as diarrhea.
Randall’s article suggests that if your digestive system takes it up, that’s a sign of insufficiency. True??
So, diarrhea would indicate you’re OK? It seems an ugly method of determining your status.

Re magnesium – as I understand it, some forms of magnesium at more bioavailable than others. Mg. Citrate is one of the better ones whereas Mg. Oxide is not so efficacious and can cause a nasty case of the back door trot.
I find a daily supplementation of 400mgs keeps muscle cramps and contracted tendons (because of neuropathy) at bay – just about. It’s nice to think it may be doing me some other good as well.

Ms supp: A clear and ongoing positive for me. Supple relaxed musculature that used to seize up at night. Not now. I make it with mixing carbonated water and Mag hydroxide. Didn’t get on with spray. Epsom salts are nice but do they make much difference. Oral ionic Mg didn’t do much but cost a lot.

Dear Dr K, on 23 May 13, you wrote:
“I have looked at minerals and supplementation. To the point where I am working with a company producing a supplement. It contains magnesium, as a deficiency in magnesium is a clear risk factor for CVD. It also contains, potassium, l-arginine, coenzyme Q 10 etc. …. ”
Can you say anything further about status of this work.

For those interested, the Jaminet’s suggest routine supplement of 200mg per day of magnesium (taken as citrate or glycinate) and quote clinical trials that have shown significant mortality reduction from giving Mg to cardiac patents (a study of heart attack patients given Mg therapy before thrombolytic therapy decreasing mortality rates by 24% & a Russian trial in which a group given Mg supplements that were only half as likely to die during the period of the trial).

Not to mention that there are many folks (MDs, scientists, quacks) who have discovered THE one substance which they are adamant must be taken as a long term supplement in unphysiological concentrations by as much of the population as possible (ascorbic acid, iodine, rapamycin, …).

Now, a collaborative team of researchers from the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University have discovered that synthetic APC-mimicking small molecules called “parmodulins” provide anti-inflammatory and anti-thrombotic protection to endothelial cells on par with APC’s without interfering with normal blood clotting and coagulation, making them attractive new drug candidates. This work was enabled by leveraging the Wyss Institute’s Organ-on-a-Chip technology to model thrombosis within a human blood vessel in vitro. The results are reported in this week’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“We essentially performed a mini pre-clinical trial of parmodulins’ effect on the endothelium, and not only determined the pathway through which parmodulins function, but also demonstrated that they help protect endothelial cells from inflammatory damage,” says former Wyss postdoc Abhishek Jain, Ph.D., who is now an Assistant Professor and director of the Bioinspired Translational Microsystems lab at Texas A&M University.

The target protein on which both APC and parmodulins act is the transmembrane protein protease-activated receptor 1 (PAR1), which is present on both endothelial cells and platelets that circulate through the blood and promote clotting, making mechanistic analysis difficult. PAR1 was originally identified as a receptor for thrombin, which is a crucial part of the inflammatory process. However, when PAR1 is activated by APC on endothelium, it triggers anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, and barrier-fortifying pathways, all of which help protect cells from the negative effects of inflammation.

In addition to activating PAR1, APC also independently inhibits the generation of thrombin, which is an essential component of healthy blood clotting — but inhibiting thrombin too much leads to uncontrolled bleeding. Knowing that parmodulins bind to PAR1, the team of scientists and clinicians set out to find a way to activate endothelial PAR1 and reduce thrombic responses without thinning the blood, and thus provide a better alternative to APC.

To evaluate the activity of parmodulins on endothelium, Karen De Ceunynck, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at BIDMC and first author of the paper, incubated human endothelial cells with parmodulin 2 in vitro for 4 hours and then exposed them to the thrombin-inducing inflammatory agents lipopolysaccharide (LPS) or tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α). In the parmodulin-exposed cells, both agents’ ability to generate thrombin was reduced by over 50% compared with non-parmodulin-exposed cells. However, parmodulin 2 did not inhibit the activity of factor V or factor X, proteins that function in blood coagulation. “We were intrigued by the notion that parmodulin 2 inhibited LPS- and TNF-mediated prothrombotic effects on the endothelial surface without impairing blood clotting” says De Ceunynck.

To confirm this theory, the team used a Wyss-developed blood-vessel-on-a-chip consisting of microfluidic channels embedded in a clear polymer chip, coated with collagen, and lined by human endothelial cells. Whole blood was perfused through the chip to simulate the flow conditions within human blood vessels, to which were added different pro- and anti-inflammatory compounds to evaluate the response of the endothelium.

When the endothelial cells were exposed to TNF-α before being perfused with whole blood, platelets accumulated on the endothelium in a typical inflammatory response; if the cells were first exposed to parmodulin 2 and then TNF-α, platelet accumulation was inhibited and the endothelium resumed its normal function. These results indicated that parmodulin exposure blocks the thrombotic response of endothelium to inflammatory stimuli without affecting blood coagulation in humans — a significant improvement over APC.

A series of tests in vitro performed by co-first author Christian Peters, Ph.D. at BIDMC, confirmed that parmodulin 2’s activation of PAR1 also induces cytoprotective responses in endothelial cells by inhibiting apoptosis (programmed cell death) induced by thrombin, TNF-α, and the apoptotic alkaloid staurosporine through a signaling pathway that begins with parmodulin 2’s binding to a specific site on the cytoplasmic side of PAR1. “We observed that the cytoprotective response induced by parmodulin 2 happened very quickly, and confirmed its rapid onset in time course and gene expression assays,” says Peters.

Additionally, in vivo studies in mice showed that parmodulin 2 reduces the binding of white blood cells to blood vessels and impairs platelet and fibrin accumulation at injury sites during the inflammatory response, confirming the anti-thrombotic and anti-coagulant activity of parmodulin 2 observed in vitro. Additionally, parmodulins do not interact with many of APC’s other binding partners, making it much more targeted to PAR1 and reducing other side effects.

“The discovery of an anti-inflammatory molecule that prevents endothelial thrombosis but also preserves normal blood coagulation is a major step toward an alternative and better approach to treating inflammatory disease,” says Rob Flaumenhaft, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chief of the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at BIDMC, and corresponding author of the paper. “Furthermore, nearly all other pharmaceuticals that target transmembrane PAR1-like receptors bind to the exterior side of the receptor; parmodulin 2 represents a paradigm shift for compounds targeting these receptors because it acts on the cellular side of the protein. We are excited to see if we can advance it to clinical trials.”

“This work provides another example of how organ-on-a-chip technology can enable faster and safer development and evaluation of drugs that could help patients around the world,” says co-author and Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at HMS and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, as well as Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

Additional authors of the paper include Sarah Higgins, Ph.D., also a Research Fellow at BIDMC; Omozuanvbo Aisiku, Ph.D, former Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at BIDMC and currently a scientist at Instrumentation Laboratory; Jennifer Fitch-Tewfik, Ph.D., former Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at BIDMC and currently a teacher at Southeastern Regional Vocational Technical High School; Sharjeel Chaudhry, a Predoctoral Fellow in the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at BIDMC; Chris Dockendorff, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at Marquette University; and Samir Parikh, M.D., Associate Professor at HMS.

This research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

Story Source:

Materials provided by Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard. Original written by Lindsay Brownell. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A bit tough going for many people. My problem with it, is the obsession with inflammation as the ’cause’ of anything. Inflammation is the result of damage – it is also called ‘healing.’ Be careful if you block healing responses, things may not turn out as you would wish.

I think you could usefully devote a whole post to the issue of inflammation, and when it is OK to suppress it, and when not etc. For example, I have often seen the comment that statins exert their meagre anti-CVD effects because they are anti-inflammatory (tell that to my right leg!) – as opposed to the fact (is it definite?) that they increase NO production.

David Bailey, reducing quantity of macrophages with statins might slow down the injury repair time. No macrophages equates to no inflammation. Whatever caused the injury still exists and is not being repaired.

There is an assumption in almost all our discussions about the causes of CVD : that we make reasoned & scientifically based decisions in our lives…But is it in fact actually so ?

Dr Peter Attia has launched his new website with a very relevant article on why we are NOT programmed to think scientifically…

The human species is a couple of hundred thousand years old. But logic as a formal skill dates from 2500 hundred years ago while the ‘scientific method’ dates from the 1500’s. And prior to the development of logic & scientific method other methods were used to survive, especially that of imitating the ‘successful’ & ‘powerful’….

True, of course. However, the scientific method is all we’ve got really. It is imperfect, most humans twist and bend facts to suit themselves, and suchlike – doctors are probably the very worst at this. Actually, no probably about it. In the end, though, we have to cling to the scientific method – or else what is there to do? Throw it away. Then what?

Never mind obvious belief systems. Just look at the Medical profession.
The trick is that by seeing someone else ‘worse’ than you, you get to feel better.
“Superior” minds pontificate upon those they do not understand.
Or indeed refusing to open to the possibility of understanding, because they do not fit the rules to which one’s thinking is fitted.

Dr. K. I was not suggesting that we throw the baby out with the dirty bath water !.. The ‘Scientific Method’ is indeed all we have got…But it is helpful to know just how rare it is among the general human population still operating on the older ‘imitation method’ of going about life.This is Illustrated by the so common use of deciding arguments from ‘authority’, instead of the facts known.

Peter Attia at the end of his post has this say :
If you’re reading this, and you’re saying to yourself that you want to increase your mastery of critical thinking, I promise you this much—you can do it if you’re willing to do the following:
1 Start reading (see starter list, below).
2 Whenever confronted with a piece of media claiming to report on a scientific finding, read both the actual study and the media, in that order. See if you can spot the mistakes in reporting.
3 Find other like-minded folks to discuss scientific studies. You need a good group of peers who share your appetite for sharpening their critical thinking skills. ”

I disagree. Every successful inventor throughout history practiced a scientific method even if unknowingly. They had an idea and they tinkered with it until it became successful. From people who domesticated plants and invented the wheel to those who codified the principles of yoga, Auyrveda and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Or invented gunpowder, the compass or built ships. All those things happened long before 1500s. In 1500s the scientific method became crystallized and practiced on the large scale in the West, at least, but I think the idea that science didn’t exist before then is largely a fallacy.

Sasha, you are right about inventions predating the ‘invention’ of the scientific method. But such technological developments were always the result of a suck it & see incremental approach. And until the 15th Century, progress was slow. The scientific method permitted greater understanding and much quicker progress…

But as Dr Attia says even now in modern western societies, the actual percentage of the population that understands and uses the scientific method, is still quite low.

IN the beginning is the Word – and the Logic that proceeds from it.
Logic is integral to any meaningful continuity – ie consciousness.
But logic can only apply or operate upon a founding principle, idea, ‘word’ or definition. Whatever you accept true will logically proceed to structure your consciousness. If you accept conflicting truths – you have a ‘timeshare’ mind that seems illogical because it shifts between different compartmentalisations.

Jesus said something that few can presently grasp. “It is what goes forth from a mouth that corrupts a man and not what goes into it”.
But what you accept true is what you believe and protect as yourself and react to as your reality. And so it is this that your words and deeds give witness to and that determines the measure of your receipt or reflected experience.

What the rationalist mind does not know is that the outsourcing of inner knowing – ay – even unto the wisdom of Solomon! – to ‘experts’ and their systems is the experience of alienation under the illusion of control.

This is now fleshing out in the outsourcing of even the little that remains to the likes of Google, GPS and AI, as a templated and medicated golem.

The nature of a deceit is to ‘add things to you’ that then turn out to be fake promises, but by then you have lost the wherewithal to do anything about it.
Growing consciousness is more an uncovering of the true to knowing – rather than the Promethean idea of stealing truths to use in the world as a personal sense of power.

The knowledge base – in scientific terms – can be assigned to the literature – which in large part consist of published peer reviewed studies. At the very least I suggest that this is a (swearing impulse noted) mess!
Corruption is so pervasive and endemic as to result in mayhem. And it is.
I do not subscribe to the ‘good guys’ and bad guys idea. Big mistake in my opinion. But any true willingness for honesty or true witness amidst such a situation is a healing thread in which to resonate, join with and honour.

Corruption is when a foreign purpose displaces home truths. I believe Solomon lost his wisdom in taking foreign wives. The level at which anyone accesses information is the nature of their capacity to understand. Shifting to a deeper level is usually brought on by deep need – such as health crisis can sometimes facilitate.

I tend to take such pronouncements with a grain of salt. I doubt people have changed all that much in just 2500 years and couldn’t think logically before. Right now, most people are not thinking logically or independently. They look to thought leaders. It doesn’t matter how intelligent or educated they are. This is what I observe. It is a personality type who thinks independently, and it is somewhat of a minority. Just because we now have a guiding principle of the scientific method does not mean people could not think before that, nor that now they do.

AnnaM, well we certianly have lots of very cranky independent minded folk here on this blog !!
🙂

But out there in the world ? I think a good indicator would be the number of statin takers in the general population. And here in Oz they are very many…A reflection of the impulse to accept the arguments, unexamined, of the expert doctors.
😦

Meawhile of course you are right : there were lots of wise thinkers in the past. We have their writings : the Buddha, Lao Tse, Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Pliny etc etc…

I was quite taken by the doctor/researchers pioneering personalised dietary guidelines via blood sugar testing that I posted about recently. I have therefore started a personal experiment to find out what how foods effect me. Started today with bread which I normally do not eat but I need to find out whether that is a wise decision or not. My fasting blood glucose is normally 81/82 ish. A couple of years ago I tested after 6 bananas in the morning and it came in at 92. Today I had two slices of toast with butter and my blood sugar reading came in at 100!. I can assume therefore that I am doing the right thing avoiding bread and that maybe the customary samdwich lunch many people have with 4 or 6 slices would send my blood sugar higher than 100. On Thursday I will move onto rice followed by my customary oats and kiwi and then of course fasting. Here in Portugal a blood glucose test is 2 euros.

As far as I’m concerned, there’s absolutely no evidence that properly made bread (a whole topic in itself) eaten in balance with other food groups will lead to increased incidence of diabetes or CVD. But maybe we shouldn’t get into it here as it will lead to another round of debates…

Having a modest rise from 82 fasting to 100 post meal is not at all bad. What you need to do is compare it to several other choices. But I guess that is what you’re doing. Keep us posted. But what also matters is how high does it go and for how long.

What I am looking for Anna is optimization not acceptability. So for example I tend to eat rice instead of potatoes and sweet potatoes instead of potatoes. What I want to do is confirm hopefully that these are optimal choices for me. Also I have oats and kiwi for breakfast, I am assuming that this is OK but I wont know until tomorrow if this assumption is correct. I am also posting this data because it may prompt others to experiment. If you find one simple improvement then it will be worth it

And don’t forget frozen bread! I had a grilled cheese sandwich last night made from bread that was in the freezer. Apparently the glycemic load drops significantly by increasing the resistant starch via freezing and then reheating. What better use of science than increasing my enjoyment of delicious things!

FTL: Maximize the Effect: If you first freeze white bread and then toast it, the amount of glucose that your blood absorbs after eating it is half the amount you absorb from fresh white bread. The researchers suspect that the starch molecules in the bread take on a different structure as a result of freezing, defrosting and toasting, which means your body has to work harder to break down the sugar.

KidPsych, I laughed when i read your comment about the benefits of frozen bread. My lady loves visiting op-shops and the other day we were at a 7th. Day Adventist Op shop, that also supplies free food to the local poor. And there was a huge quantity of types of bread almost out of date also available for free. I grabbed a couple of rye bread loaves to put in the freezer to store for when I run out of my preferred organic rye bread. They are sitting in the freezer right now and now I find out that freezing them is better for me as well !

So from now on I will do this with all my bread….

I wonder Smatersig if you could do a blood test on it as well – just so we are better informed ?

There are some good aspects to Rye bread due to I think the Lignans they contain. Trouble is its the one bread that gives my stomach the ebeegeebeez. I intend to do a high fibre bread that they do down here just to compare

KidPsych: This is very, very interesting. I made sourdough bread for many years. In recent years as an empty nester it was only me eating the bread, so I always sliced and froze the loaf, except for the first slice. I would then toast it crispy, cool it, and add thick butter. Good to know I wasn’t destroying my arteries by doing this. Yet when I gave it up I rapidly lost my belly fat. Curiouser and curiouser.

A lot of what is called bread nowadays, isn’t. We used to eat sourdough in the days before a loaf had to be created in an hour from milling the grain using Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Brewer’s /baker’s yeast).
In contrast to Chorleywood bread (G.I. ca.75), sourdoughs are claimed to have a G.I. of around 53, and testing shows that sourdoughs have a higher Resistant Starch content that may account for the slower metabolisation.
It would be interesting to know what your blood sugar reading was after buttered sourdough toast.
I do make my own 15 hour leavened organic white sourdough, but don’t have to run blood tests.

Indeed, I would say that nothing is what it seems. The masking of adulterated or corrupted fraud – and food – is pervasive.

It is cheaper to sell industrial waste as food or drugs than dispose of it properly. From the perspective of corporate profit and corporate power. Maybe that is an extreme statement but not altogether unfounded.
Why would money determine everything, but that the money system is no less an adulterated and corrupted system. Who controls the money supply?

smartersig: Interesting. I’m not surprised that bread gave a bigger response than bananas. I’m glad I gave it up. All those blood tests are going to reduce your iron stores. Better have some red meat to compensate (just teasing).

Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures, said on the approach to his hundredth birthday ‘If I’d known how old I was going to be I’d have taken better care of myself.’ Zukor died in 1976 having been born in 1873.”

Sigh – here we go again! And I need to get this off my chest (time which could be better spent e.g. on CVD issues and reading all the data, comments, links and so on presented here).

Sadly, recent blogs, or rather the comments, had started to get unpleasant and started to wind me up (and others too) due to (1) antagonisms (debate?!) between some commenters and (2) the group of commenters trying to dictate the contents of both what Dr Kendrick should be writing about and what we should be commenting about. Specifically – diet.

Then we had a few pleasant blogs without all this and, sadly, there are now a few comments in this blog revisiting these areas.

For those moaning to Dr Kendrick about diet, or whatever you don’t like to read here, can’t you do what has been suggested several times and just scroll though what you don’t want to read?

And in the spirit of “if you can’t beat them join them”, here is my list of what I don’t want to read about:

vaccination, HIV and aids ,earthing, recipes and menus, soil quality.

Having said that, I enjoy and embrace the diversity of all the topics, have learnt a lot from this diversity of commenting and wouldn’t want it to change, and I either read or scroll through the comments depending on my mood.

Yes. I am trying to work out how to keep things from descending into personal stuff, without damaging free speech. It is a very hard thing to do. a bit of heat and snap is not a bad thing, I think. But we all draw our lines in different places. Personally I have no problem if someone calls me an idiot, and I can cope with more personal attacks than most (I have had to over the years). My attitude is simple. If they are insulting me, they are losing the argument. However, many people cannot stand any personal attacks. Smartersig takes a bit of a whacking, but keeps coming back for more, so I assume he is pretty resilient, as is Binra. I have blocked a wide range of his posts – mainly because I cannot understand them at all – yet he too, seems happy to roll with it.

As you can see…. tricky stuff. One needs the wisdom of Solomon I think.

Oh dear. I will have to keep track. I am not sure. There can obviously be too much stuff, but I am a great believer that things trigger other things, and wandering about all over the place can be quite a good way of getting things straight. A bit like children playing, they are learning much at the same time – I think.

I agree, as one poster pointed out I have been at friendly, I hope, loggerheads with one or two people, thinking I will never have common ground with these guys but surprisingly find myself agreeing on some newer aspects of the overall debate.

Dear Dr. Kendrick, running a blog as active as this with all the comments it generates, is hard work. “Allowing” or not “allowing” a certain number of posts per person if you tried to do it yourself, could drive you completely crackers – or become so tedious, you junk your blog. We don’t want that. It is sad that some commentators are so arrogant, and hi-faluting, they scorn others. Don’t let their tight lipped disapproval, introduce the spirit of ‘banning’/’prohibition’ here. Perhaps they could form their own elite club?
As an avid follower of your blog, who seldom speaks, but reads and learns from you AND the ‘conversations’ of everyone else, I’m just saying……to put a prohibition of 4 posts a day for comments would need outside moderators, staff and logistics that WordPress probably can’t offer. Your blog will change from an intimate rough and tumble to cosmetic – artificial – constrained. And that would be a shame.

But, Doc, If you don’t exercise a some discipline, you get chaos — certainly counterproductive to good learning. Treat us as you have your own children. That’s what we are, virtually — age notwithstanding.
There’s a real-world red flag in Golding’s “Lord Of The Flies”.

Thanks for illustrating the way ‘order’ creates chaos!
And giving power to the ‘big man’.
Discipleship is purpose.
Be on purpose and trust that shared purpose aligns what we need, one step at a time.
Judging what does and does not belong is trying to take Malcolm’s job – while implying he isn’t doing it!
(your way)

BTW – in any moment any ‘view’ may seem to be fearing for the ‘state of the forum’. But each is a perception that tends to solicit support rather than extend a direct appreciation. ‘Freaking out and calling for the Doc’ is perhaps an unwillingness to invite and embrace the symptom.

If anyone feels they cannot learn anything from this blog because of the content, whatever form that may take, then this may not be the best place to look. I don’t suggest that anyone should stop reading and contributing here, but life is what it is to some extent, and what you make it, again, to some extent. There Is much here that doesn’t appeal to me, but there is rarely a day when I don’t learn something, and I find the experience reading the posts compelling. I think the variety of posts is excellent, and IMO well moderated. Some of the posts are way over my head, but that just means there is room for me to improve.

Charles, I am a frequent commentator here and I also go make ‘non medical CVD’ type comments. So I guess I am one of those who you are slightly annoyed at.

By way of defense I want to make the following points:
1: There is in your comment an assumption that there is a simple ‘recipe’ for preventing CVD or recovering well from it.
2 I suspect also that you assume that the ‘recipe’ is some kind of medication or supplements. And this discussion is about weeding out the ineffective or adverse medicines & supplements from the useful good ones.
3 : While I accept that some medications & supplements are good for preventing or recovering from CVD, I don’t think that is by any means a complete answer. So the search for a complete ‘recipe’ goes on.
4 : : I suspect that some ‘foods’ also contribute to CVD. The main one I have in mind is sugary stuff but also I industrial seed oils are part of this. Staying away from these is probably useful to all of us.
5 : I suspect that the way we ‘live’ our lives makes a huge difference. ( Lots of stress versus staying calm for example. And being active versus being inactive is an other. ) I believe that Gary’s contributions about this are really helpful – at least to me.
6 Following on from this, in my life I am an active organic gardener. Not only does it provide a natural opportunity to be active and busy. It puts me in touch with the natural world, boosts my vitamin D levels and actually gives me a sense of purpose.
7 : Also following on from this, in 2016 I married again and regained a real sense of the pleasure of married life : being loved & cared for and loving & caring. I note that sex & marriage are not just life enhancers, but life ‘lengtheners’.
8 : Finally following on completing my ‘recipe’ for a good healthy life, I dance regularly. I specifically dance Argentine tango and have done since 2008. The challenges in learning this skill were considerable. But it is enormously rewarding as an activity. And by doing so I have become part of close network of caring people, a community. And this is also part of the recipe.

Thank you Dr K ! Yes Life is good !
However I do not wish to be prescriptive. I offer the life I have as an example. Others will find their own “Good Life” and each of those lives could be completely different…And be effective so long as the basic principles are kept.

HOLY SMOKE
Originally tobacco was a medicinal plant with health benefits, and also used in spiritual rituals. Use of incense in some churches is a throwback to those days. The modern tobacco plant is now 90% GMO to resist pests and roundup, making commercial tobacco unfit for human consumption in any form. A couple of cigarettes a day may be beneficial for stress reduction, but don’t inhale.

Yes. If there is organic tobacco – it may well be a totally different outcome to smoke it.
Taking ‘medicine’ by lung is not wrong.
But the Amerindian term ‘medicine’ has no match in those who ‘think in the heads’.

Bill in Oz: my point was that the scientific method was simply codified in 1500’s, not “invented”. It existed since the beginning of time, otherwise how would we get from stone tools to building ships? And it happened long before 1500’s. I think it’s a mistake to think that before the Scientific Revolution the approach was “try and see” and afterwards it became something else. The approach itself hasn’t changed much it simply becomes faster as our knowledge base grows. Otherwise, I agree with a lot of points in the article.

Re your comment “maybe his cholesterol levels are way out of wack because, perhaps, just perhaps, he has poor reverse transportation and as a result his cholesterol circulation is prolonged and prone to oxidation.”

You’ll be thrilled to know that I am not taking you to task on this but picking your brains for further details! If we are talking about the same thing, cholesterol transportation and oxidation, this came under my scrutiny when preparing for a FH genetic test. Is this what you are talking about…here’s my simplistic breakdown/understanding with a few introductions on the players involved…

1. LDL – cholesterol. New cholesterol produced by the liver.
2. HDL – cholesterol. This is excess cholesterol transported back to the liver where it is either recycled or excreted into bile.
3. Apolipoproteins – transport the above lipids through the bloodstream of which there are 2 types:
4. apoB – transports new LDL-C to the cells and
5. apoA – transports excess HDL back to liver.

My handwritten scribbles tie in with your comment in which I wrote that “HDL reverse transport is only way cells get rid of excess cholesterol”. Also, reflecting current/mainstream thinking, this is the reason why high HDL is considered good and if it’s low it’s bad.

So, if you (or Nigel in this case) wanted to check your cholesterol transportation, you’d want to test for apoB and apoA levels, ideally with apoB lower than apoA indicating more going back than coming out of the liver?

Mine were:

apoB = 1.12 g/L
apoA = 1.53 g/L

Less coming out and more going back…less hanging around in the bloodstream and prone to oxidation?

On a lighter note…

What a 2018/Part 44 you are having! I note:

1. Getting name checked by Dr Kendrick in response to my moan earlier today. I had to laugh at your mention because I was thinking of the amount of flak you get when I wrote that comment but you are able to fight your corner very well.
2. The exchange between yourself and Bill in Oz discussing your increasing agreement in some matters.
3. Also enjoyed Gary Ogden’s comment about your possible reduced iron stores and perhaps the need for some red meat consumption.

“Higher HDL levels are generally associated with decreased risk for heart disease because of its role in transporting cholesterol away from macrophages within the artery wall back to the liver for recycling. However it seems that the amount of HDL is not the primary driver of improvement in this area. HDL Efflux appears to be the main driver and refers to how good HDL is at ‘sucking’ up cholesterol. You can have HDL C levels above 2.0 mmol but if your Efflux is low the hoover just ain’t picking up the bits. This may explain why very high levels of HDL dont seem to be better than just above average levels.

How can we improve HDL Efflux, well it seems the good old Med’ diet comes to fore once again along with a moderate (glass with a meal) amount of red wine. More controversially for me and other more expert in the field is the advocacy of extra virgin olive oil. Nothing seems to split the heart health community like this ingredient. Some research swear by it whilst others clearly show it creates endothelial disfunction. My feelings are that when confronted with split opinions like this I prefer to leave it out of my diet especially when its non essential. I will stick with a med’ based diet and a handful of nuts each day.

Smartersig, re olive oil, it all depends on which olive oil..I only use organic virgin olive oil. even though it is effectively 50% more per liter that non organic olive oils..

But also plain olive oil may be sourced from trees and groves managed with. a lot of persistent chemicals which then taint the olives. And the olives are then processed for their oil..But after crushing the olives for the first flush, this can include chemical treatment of the crushed pomace & seeds to extract more oil per kg of olives.

As with all foods we get what we pay for : cheap can be unhealthy as well.

The majority of studies say OO is good but there are some that show it impairs endothelial function with also more than one doctor frowning upon it. The Pritkin institute for example says leave it alone. Now I dont know which side is right but in these situations I ask myself, do I need to eat this food?, can I dress a salad with a vinigarette dressing, well yes sure I can. Its the same with Milk, do I need it, well no I use almond or Hemp milk. Am I right to avoid it, I dont know for sure but I am not deficient by giving it a miss.

You have some of the best olive oils in South Australia! I’ve had the privilege of visiting and tasting olive oils from a number of olive groves at vineyards, especially in the Barossa and Adelaide Hills.

We do indeed Frederica. And an organic farmer mate grows olives down at Willunga. It is a local farming sector which has grown a lot in the past 20 years despite fierce competition from cheap EC subsidised olive oil imported from Spain & Italy made with olives. from Morroco, Algeria and Tunisia.

Glad you brought Cyril Regis up Charles I was going to mention him myself. Firstly I always find it frustrating that amongst all the eulogies there is rarely any analysis of what the hell caused a fit ex athlete to die at 59. With regard to silent killer and tests, perhaps in addition to calcium scores there is the Kraft test as well. This requires no radiation and is cheap to administer.

Charles,
No I haven’t considered getting a calcium score, nor do I intend to, A) because I can’t afford it; and B) because they will tell me to take statins and cut out the fat, and I won’t do either of those.

AFAIK, if you have a high calcium score, there is little you can do to reverse it. The best is probably to exercise more to develop collaterals, but of course the more you exercise the more chance of overstressing your heart.

I’m a great believer in the dictum “listen to your body”. If I feel something’s not right, I’ll visit the doctor.

As for our over-achievers and their Lp(a), there is so much we don’t know. Did they guzzle energy drinks? Did they make protein shakes with the great tubs of what I consider industrial waste in the ‘fitness’ section of the shop? Did they feel twinges in their hearts and think they could just run it off? Were the warning signs there but they don’t want to admit they ignored them, for fear of being called idiots?

Gary, please don’t go away for 30 days! I learn loads from your posts. I’d rather read 54 of your posts than yet another plea to Dr Kendrick to provide a solution for CVD (preferably in the form of a convenient once a day something to take…)

A good debate does lots to stimulate further investigation, especially with people with whom you disagree, as long as they make logical arguments and can support them.

It all goes back to learning how to reason from first principles. That’s what physicists always emphasize.

Sasha: Thanks! Some pals put a rope on the bars and sprung me from chokey. Just kidding: they let me out early for good behavior (feeding the crumbs from the bread which was my only sustenance to the malnourished rats). Thanks to smartersig for sending a plate of WFPB (it was delicious!) and squirrel-fur earmuffs, I neither starved nor got frostbite.
Dr. Kendrick’s metaphor-“like children at play”- was so apt, I don’t think it could be described better. This is indeed how children learn how to become people, to interact with others, to think, to share, and so forth. With some adult guidance they then develop their critical thinking and reasoning skills. Sadly, today too many children don’t get sufficient unsupervised play. But I must say that this forum is wonderful. I have learned from nearly every commenter, and appreciate them all. Seems to me that playfulness is a sign of good mental health.

I am very disappointed in you. I also think the amount of soft drinks served in hospitals is deplorable and have thought that in general the food on the trays is exceptionally poor quality, and I really do take offense at the incredible amount of cheap carb ridden, low nutrient foods that is served to diabetics, who regularly complain that at home their sugars are lower (although their illness can contribute to higher sugars sometimes).

The problem here is that you really don’t respect personal freedom because, of course, you are RIGHT, you see. And there isn’t a possibility of you being wrong. But that is what everybody thinks, and then they turn out to be wrong. It’s bad enough that their advice leads directly to death (sun blocker lotions) but it would be so much worse if people were forced by legislation to apply that sunblocker that later results in their melanoma.

In a previous hospital they were really into the Dean Ornish ideas, and there was no butter to be had, which was true until I left there a year ago. Not even in the public cafeteria, not as a choice. Margarine was the only possibility if I wanted the roll that goes with the meal. So I didn’t take the roll, although I paid for it. And yet it came out very thoroughly in 2003 that hydrogenated oils are to be completely avoided. Furthermore, the knowledge that margarine is bad goes way back. I was actually taught in nursing school nutrition class that margarine is implicated in heart disease and cancer, and this was about 1994.

You need to go back and read Dr. Kenrick’s reply to you and contemplate it. Sure, it is highly unlikely at this point that we will find out that soft drinks are okay. But if things get banned every time a group of researchers become sure of something, then our bad health will be mandated by law, which is very unfair. I’ve spent a lifetime going against the grain and finding cutting edge knowledge, and over time, I have generally been right and the consensus experts wrong.

I wonder if it is possible for a country to slide into totalitarianism without a lot of people supporting it, which is what I see happening now in the US. Especially young people.

Anna this is another example of trying to refute my point by exagerration and extrapolation. I am not advocating that we ban anything that someone suggests is bad. For example Milk has a split amongst people some think its good others think it is bad. Clearly people should be able to choose within a hospital. Dont forget we are debating ‘within a hospital’ not out there anywhere in the community. Now I would advocate that when the whole medical community agrees that coke and the like is detrimental to health, hospitals should not be selling it. Such an action has no consequences for wider civil liberties. A vegan cafe does not sell meat even though it might widen their appeal and boost their profits. This does not mean civil liberties are at risk.

Hmm, but people are not captive in vegan cafes. In the hospital the patients and employees are captive. And someone up above said that whole milk was banned in schools. If so, I am aghast. I know that my 5-year-old neighbor is being served skimmed milk in school and that is unconscionable. Frankly, I don’t see much of an answer. We are a degenerate society and I don’t know if anything can pull us up.

An exchange of diverging or opposite views. Argument is good, if we remain civil. As a ringmaster Dr Kendrick does a sterling job. He does not need me to defend him, but cut him a bit of slack says this very mature woman, not necessarily older and wiser, I wish.

Dr K
if you going to comment on supplements in your next blog, would it be possible to touch on protein supplements for seniors? Sarcopenia (and the heart is a muscle) can be countered with exercise, but seniors need a lot of protein, 1 to 1.2 gms per kg of body weight, and probably don’t get it. A link to a study on whey protein and muscle gain.https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21606874

TS
I am a big BOSU fan, but even so, without extra protein it will not make that much difference. Lots of seniors are protein deficient, say one gm per kg body weight, and getting that amount of protein into you is not easy. And I would like to improve my performance on my bike on hills. Big muscles are the solution

I try to go with the flow and wouldn’t want things to change really. Just find it hard to spot new comments when we get into the high number of responses.

Not sure what the sharpening comments mean. Perhaps, in conjunction with Bill in Oz’s comment about weeding out things this is Occam’s Razor i.e. getting rid of the superfluous.

Bill in Oz – many thanks for your detailed (8 bullet points) comments. Much appreciated and valued and I do enjoy your posts whatever the subject. A good example was in this current blog about your vegetable garden and produce – had me wishing I was your neighbour.

But bullet point one – the simple solution for prevention or recovery? Nope.

I have spent a lot of time and money trying to find out what happens and what happened to me.

Just following Dr Kendrick for the last 18 months since my incident has opened my eyes to the myriad possibilities and hypotheses out there.

I haven’t really wavered in my belief that long term stress (unproven) was my problem, with vit C deficiency nagging away as another possible contender/factor. That’s 2 hypotheses.

And I’m very keen to explore the other playing fields, other hypotheses.

On that note, perhaps, instead of saying what we all don’t want to read, we could suggest topics we’d like to cover?

Dr Mike Eades interviewed Gary Taubes a few years back and invited his blog followers to submit questions:

On various blood test results I’ve had, they have done “Haemoglobin A1c – IFCC”, which I gather is used to diagnose diabetes. According to the UK diabetes website. Also, the blood test printout has a comment that the result either does or does not support diagnosis of T2DM.

If you have had this test done (or no diabetes symptoms e.g. excessive thirst), does it negate the need for a further (e.g. Kraft) test?

I have not been diagnosed Charles as T2D or even pre diabetic as my fasting blood glucose is around 82. However I was struck by the logic of the Kraft test. The idea that how we are handling blood glucose spikes and the degree we are susceptible to them may be in shades of grey rather than you are diabetic or you are not. As Kraft said (I think it was him), those with heart disease just have not yet been properly diagnosed as diabetic or pre diabetic. If this is correct then we all need to know how various foods are effecting us. We need to check out commonly consumed foods and see which choices dampen down the fire for us personally. For example I might be a person who does better on rice rather than potatoes but you may be the other way round. I eliminated bread some time ago and based on the one test I have done so far this seems to be a sensible move because anything that spikes me up or above 100 for breakfast has to go in room 101. I know for example that 6 bananas has me only hitting 91, but as my old dad used to say ‘I dont know if they are doing you any good son but tha’ cant half climb trees’.

Husband has lone AF (caused/correlated to his marathon running?) and after some TIAs was put on warfarin. I understand warfarin causes severe calcification, ironically potentiating heart issues he does not have. Do the newer anticoagulants have the same calcification problem?
MK 7 suggested as a counter to calcification, despite the conventional warnings about it being an anticoag antagonist. (btw I take K2
together with magnesium and credit it as instrumental in reversing my osteoporosis to osteopenia.)

Warfarin causes severe calcification and mm-7 will reverse some of it. In low doses the INR will barely if at all move. Lots of cardiologists will resist this advice. Nutrition is unfortunately neglected by many physicians.

In today’s Lancet: “an RCT assesses the efficiency of rivaroxaban with or without aspirin against stroke, MI, or CV death.” Funded by Bayer. And a second advert, for the flu shot industry, “Preparing for seasonal influenza.” Paints a grim picture!

smartersig said; “Apologies Jeff, you are quite right. I was having a bad day and I think the frustration of people twisting or misunderstanding my points got the better of me.”

Thank you, smartersig. I accept your gracious and welcome apology. In my web shorthand manner, I was referring to the removal of whole milk news item because it is an ill-informed blunder for which there is no evidence.

The use of compulsion by some authority or another; in order to extract compliance from an uneducated and unwilling populace, is not an easy pill to swallow. Watching the machinations of various health protection agencies as they attempt to browbeat the public into submission over saturated fats, cholesterol levels disease et al, is a disgrace. For me, this issue of removing whole milk was just more of the same.

However, if you look at the reporting (by clinicians through the CSM and members of the public) of the side effects of statins, you won’t find very much support for the notion that statins are deeply toxic. Statin mediated harm is always talked down and those who suggest that statins are problematic are seen as lunatics. There was (and continues to be?) an undercurrent of medical opinion that supports putting statins in our drinking water!

This form of no choice medicine, based upon falsehood, dishonest research data and a complete lack of research evidence support, is what lies ahead for a national population which is increasingly tracked and tabulated by the DoH.

In my work, certain fractures and orthopaedic injuries have to be coded for each treatment… ostensibly so that the correct payments can be made or obtained. I was surprised to learn (from the data held by the DoH) that the total number of primary fractures in the UK in a single year amounted to just over 4,000 fracture cases.

This is nonsense. My current hospital will see 120,000 new cases in A&E every year. You can safely assume that 30% of all ED attendances are orthopaedic trauma cases. When I pressed the DoH to explain the shortfall, they responded by telling me that the figures/codes which I had to collect were not actually required so the data was only available if a DoH staff member had collected and collated it.

It appears to be the case that because orthopaedic trauma can present after an MI or some other medical condition, there was no need (or point?) to collecting the information. For this reason, I cannot plan and provided services according to national or local demand. My research case for an innovative approach to acute fracture care was halted at this point because reliable data is unavailable.

Back to my original point. Whole milk removal from hospital shops and franchises, based upon no evidence for it, appears to be far more important than knowing what orthopaedic service provision is required year by year, both locally and nationally.

Furthermore , the removal of whole milk is unlikely to be able to garner more than a little, easily dismissed wide-eyed local support. Cogent arguments made by research clinicians concerning the cholesterol/heart disease hypothesis will be ignored again.

I support the position that education (with a very large ‘E’) is required and far more desirable than compulsion. Turning the purveyor of whole milk into a pseudo-criminal just to ensure compulsory compliance with nonsense, is most definitely not a happy state of affairs.

I don’t trust the government nor do I trust many pharmaceutical vendors or our regulatory bodies. NICE are happy to have drug dealers on these technical advice committees, as stakeholders! This ugly terminology hides a multitude of sins.The suppliers of any particular drug are able to have an input into the necessary prescribing regimes. This is not an arm’s length arrangement and NICE (an overarching regulatory body) are complicit.

I think Sat Fats will get some reprieve once articles like this one in Nature today keep on coming out! https://www.nature.com/articles/s41538-017-0009-x Rancid #vegetable oils: Analyzing the chemistry behind oxidation of canola oil Sat fat not a problem!

Fundamental chemistry tells us that unsaturated bonds are vulnerable (reactive) and causing damage to our immune system. For this very reason large amounts of sunflower oil was given to patients to undergo kidney transplants many years ago in order to wipe out their immune system and enable them to keep the transplanted organ. An uncorrupted immune system would have rejected the organ. This was a practice that though had to be abandoned due to the high rates of cancer the followed this clinical procedure.

I wonder about the vegans pursuing this “healthy” “margarine” way of eating or the general public encouraged to do the same.

Bill in Oz, soybean, corn and canola oils are GMO. Using them to produce margarines compounds the problem.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150305152111.htm
How healthy is genetically modified soybean oil?
Unlike the diet with regular soybean oil, the diet with the new GM soybean oil did not lead to insulin resistance.
“While the GM soybean oil may have fewer negative metabolic consequences than regular soybean oil, it may not necessarily be as healthy as olive oil, as has been assumed by its fatty acid composition, and it is certainly less healthy than coconut oil which is primarily saturated fat,” Sladek said. “It is important to understand the metabolic effects and health impact of the GM soybean oil before it is widely adopted as a healthier alternative to regular soybean oil. It is equally important to understand the health effects of regular soybean oil, which is ubiquitous in the American diet and seems to be much more detrimental to metabolic health than saturated fat.”

Andy, my understanding is that GMO soybeans cannot be grown in Australia. The number of GMO crops which have been approved for commercial cropping fairly limited : cotton & canola. And 2 states of Australia do not permit any GMO crops to be grown at all.
GMO soybean oil may be imported and thus be used in margarine here but I think most of the margarine made here contains canola, sunflower oil or palm oil.

That’s funny as hell! If they haven’t fat, what have they, these spreads? They tried Olestra (looks like fat and tastes like fat, but is not recognized by the gut as something worth digesting) here, but it gave too many people the “back door trots” (sorry I can’t remember who posted that elegant phrase, a new one to me!).

“Back door trots . . . ”
I can’t remember who said it but it made me feel young agaain. It was the usual term for we-all-know-what when I was a kid in West Cornwall. Referring to the qickest route to the little house at the end of the yard. I remember my Gran saying, after a nasty episode, “My dear I feel filleted”

SW, Thanks ( sort of ) for that link. The science in it is way beyond my comprehension; scientific gooblegook and that limits it’s usefulness to most of us here…

But I gather that Canola oil ( which I refuse to consume because it’s bloody bad for the health ) goes rancid when exposed to light. ( photo oxydation ).

Now this is not really news at all. So do many oils including olive oil which should only be consumed if it is in a sealed dark glass or metal container which light cannot penetrate.

By the way there are numerous articles on Saturated fat not being unhealthy. In fact a book was published in the UK in 2012. It is “Cholesterol & Saturated fat Prevent Heart Disease – evidence from 101 scientific papers” by David Evans.

Today in the supermarket I noticed a woman buying a block of what I assumed was margarine. On closer inspection I noticed it’s actually called “baking spread” these days and is still cited in recent sponge cake recipes by one of the nation’s favourite cooks. She didn’t even bother giving butter as an alternative!

Unfortunately I read this great blog post rather late so I hope what I am posting here will be found by many to be helpful.

An interesting article was published in Scientific American in November 2007 titled “Cell Defenses and the Sunshine Vitamin” by Luz E. Tavern-Mendoza and John H. White while both worked together at McGill University in Montreal. The article reports on their investigation of the molecular activities in human cells of vitamin D, which is actually a hormone. D3 is made by the skin cells from UVB, heat, and a breakdown product of cholesterol, 7-dehydrocholesterol. The biologically active vitamin D, 1,25D, acts like a gene switch in human cells to maintain health. So one can see when one follows the “advice” of staying out of the sun and reducing cholesterol by drugs, adverse health will result.

From reading many books, articles, and web sites on sun exposure I have learned that at sun rise, UVA is at or near maximum strength for the day until sundown. UVA is deeper penetrating in the skin and causes the most damage. UVA also penetrates through the clouds and glass in buildings and in cars, so a sunburn from UVA is possible on a cloudy day. On the other hand, at sunrise UVB starts out very low level and peaks at solar noon and then declines to zero at sunset. So the best time for sun exposure is solar noon plus and minus 2 hours and expose at least 40% of the skin. The time of year will determine through trial and error how long for exposure until the skin is slightly pink, but avoid burning. A person’s normal skin tone will determine more or less exposure. The best measure, of course, is a blood test for circulating 25-hydroxy vitamin D, a precursor to 1,25D. The target should be 50 ng/dl or slightly higher, and at 70 or above for those fighting cancer for example. It is best to cover up the head and face during the exposure as the skin is thinner there and more easily damaged. During the winter months, supplementing with D3 from 5,000 to 10,000 IU is the best way to maintain good health. The above referenced article mentioned that full body exposure to UVB 15 to 20 minutes at midday in summer, fair skin, provides 10,000 IU D3.

Hi Sci-reader, The information you present is interesting and maybe worthwhile. However there are 2 problems:
1: It is 11 years old,and you dot give any indication of whether it is now outdated.
2: The article is paywalled. They want $8.00 for a pdf of it. And as it is 11 years old who knows if it worth buying ?

Hi Bill in Oz,
Many magazines have a paywall, sorry for that. I do have an electronic copy for my use from a former subscription. You may be able to see the article at a large library perhaps. Even though the information is now 11 years old it is still viable research and there is more to the article than I summarized. $US8 is not a lot for the article. Last year I paid $US20 for a 33 year old article for a book chapter I was writing. The article was still viable for my purpose.

There may be more recent research in many publications but I haven’t seen them yet. The problem with industry and university research into vitamin D is there is no money to be made on the natural stuff, unless of course, a synthetic version is made that can be patented, such as EB1089, a synthetic analogue of 1,25D, which was discussed in the above referenced article. A good source of information on vitamin D can be found at Mercola dot com.

To correct my mistake in measurement units, the 25-hydroxy vitamin D measurement in the blood should be 50 nanograms per milliliter, not per deciliter. That increases the concentration by 100. Sorry for the error.

Sci-reader, I have here on the shelf three paperback books by Jeff Bowles published from 2012 to 2015, plus electronic copyies of more recent books by him. His main title is : Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of the Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3″ It’s 196 pages long.
And on the cover is this subtitle : ‘The Vitamin D3 Miracle: the huge secret Big Pharam Does not want you to know’.

In 2 of his other books Jeff Bowles discusses Vitamin D3 and Multiple Sclerosis and Alzheimers’ Disease.

Given that I already have access to more recent information I doubt that an article from 2007 will be useful. So I’ll decline to buy it.

Hi Gary,
The time of exposure is relative to several things, skin type and sun angle at solar noon. The article reference of 15 – 20 minutes exposure during summer for fair skin may have been calculated for Montreal, the location of the university, at 45.5 degree latitude. In my location, at 34 degree latitude, with the summer sun at 79 degrees from the horizon, a 5 to 10 minutes exposure, front then back, is all need for my skin type. The exposure times vary from higher times in the early spring to lower exposure times in the summer, then the reverse for fall, of course.

Sci-reader: Yes, all good to know. I am at about 37 degrees north. I spend lots of time outside barely clothed from March to October around the time of solar noon, except in the blazing heat (we have many days over 100), when I’m out earlier and vitamin D is still being made. I check with the U.S. Naval Observatory altitude and azimuth table to find the window when the sun is above 50 degrees. It can calculate this for anywhere in the world. Just type in your location.

Is the effect of UVB generated Vitamin D systemic and permeated by the bloodstream only or are there also local effects? The fact that melanoma occur where the sun literally never shines (as in esophagus, colon) and that outdoor workers have markedly less melanoma could be due to UVB-induced apoptosis, but it could also be down to more Vit. D and its precursors in the skin.

Taking this one step further, will sunbathing in the buff, which is not a totally off proposition in Europe, prevent breast and prostrate cancer?

Last not least, it has been proposed that FIR light makes mitochondriae more healthy which might preclude Warburg effect and hence cancer, and FIR is contained in sunlight and penetrates several cm into tissue but probably not through black board shorts.

I have no use at all for Trump, but just listen to the cholesterol hawks shouting out that he should really have is LDL lowered to 70. Also, his Navy doctor increased his Crestor dose. Brace for some more angry tweeting.

Sorry Eric, I am so totally over Mr Trump. He is the elected president of some other far away country. The media here try to deluge & alarm us with ‘Trump News’. Frankly I’ve got so bored, sick and tired of it, that I think such ‘Trump news” is fake. Can we have here a Trump free zone please ?

Yes he has arteries, a heart and takes statins etc But I believe that all people’s personal health in most countries is personal unless they personally divulge it. only in the god blessed USA does it become politics.

Bill, my points here were
– doctors from reputable institutions get to peddle their preposterous ideas about LDL lowering and the NYT makes it read like these are mainstream and undisputed views
– some of his erratic behavior may be linked to the statins he is already on

Both are relevant to the topic of this blog. That personal health assessments of their presidents get tossed out to the masses who lap it up eagerly is a very American ritual which appears as strange as the fact that once, a very promising candidate (Gary Hart) had to drop out of the primaries because we was photographed with a very smart model sitting on his lap, and that another president got impeached for a fling with his intern. Note how they are only going after Dems for perceived impropriety.

Goot for you if the current president feels far away for you. I assure you it is different here and even more so for me who has lived in the US and has retained friends and business contacts there. Back to health issues, following the news circus about Trump can be a health hazard, see my post below about a professor who took a news hiatus.

I have a lot more sympathy with President Trump than many here, and I suppose this report combines two strands of ‘fake news’ – I mean the fact that the media simply won’t explore the various medical scandals, lets it put out a dodgy report like this along with many others, such as a NYT/CNN report that the US stock market was likely to crash once the new president was inaugurated!

I was staggered when I first read “The Great Cholesterol Con” – how could medical science get away with such blatant misrepresentation of the facts? I now see this as a gradual process in which the media have their own agendas (or perhaps those of their advertisers, such as big pharma) and report news items that fit that agenda, downplaying or ignoring those that don’t.

I am no fan of Donald Trump but it is interesting how amongst the people who really run the country he was an unpopular winner. In a similar way that Corbyn is a threat to the people who really run the UK although the way things are going they are the same group of global elites. Both are therefore attacked via the media from day one in a way that is completely unbalanced. Corbyn in particular, you simply cannot pick up the Times here without finding out that Corbyn is to blame for global warming or the reduction in grey squirells. The illusion of choice is all that is presented before us and sometimes that choice gets a little out of kilter with what the controlling elite want as the meaningless figurehead.

How well your example expose the elaborated and subtle (?) corruption of the health care system! My feeling is that this corruption is rampant all around the globe where Big Pharma has put their hands on the system.

Had my second blood glucose test this morning. My first had bread coming in at 100 when my usual fasting reading is around 80 and a couple of yers ago I tested 6 bananas that came in at 92.
Today was rice, white rice at that even though I eat brown rice at home. I ate exactly the same meal last night just to try and control for this should it still be having an effect. The guy at the chemist made a good point though, he suggested that it would be better each morning to to have a fast test, then eat the test food, wait an hour and a half and then test. I will stick with ther current approach now I have started it and assume that coupled with eating the same evening meal I am controlling enough to get decent relative evaluations
Had to laugh by the way the guy took the reading and then told me the rice was coming in at 185 !!! until he pondered a few seconds and said no no its wrong I have given you a cholesterol test by mistake. He had picked up the wrong package from the fridge. After administering the correct test the rice came in at 82
This is good news as I do not eat bread but do include rice in my diet a fair bit. Next week I will check my standard breakfast, oats, Kiwi and berries

Perhaps it would be easier to get yourself a glucometer and some test strips from eBay or Amazon?

To compare similar things you should have rice with butter or white toast without butter. Or one of each of the four possibilities. Measure the amounts of input and measure, and time, the response You will get a higher and longer glucose reading from a mixed meal ie lipids plus carbs. See my comments earlier about ‘charging’.

Kraft’s important contribution was based on the thousands of insulin tests he did not just sugar or hb1ac. Look at the timing of his blood sugar graphs tho. A delayed and prolonged response is characteristic of T2dm – he plotted several types of abnormal responses

Thanks Craig, yes I am aware of Kraft’s methods but you cannot get insulin tests at the chemist and even though the high street labs are good here and they do insulin tests, when I emailed them about 5 X 1 hourly tests they seemed a little reluctant but I have not popped in to talk to them yet. I have my own glucose monitor but I seem a little clumsy drawing the blood. The last time I tried the kitchen table looked like Hannibel Lecter had just dined.
For sure combining foods will have different effects but what I am trying to check is whether certain foods are a no no and for example whether rice is OK. So far I seem correct to avoid bread and rice is not a problem. I like bread but I have no need to find an excuse to use it, like if I eat it with X or Y or Z it dampens the sugar load. I would rather just keep things simple and eliminate it.

Great post! Thanks!
I have one question, regarding loosing weight:
In your book “Doctoring Data” you reveal evidence that shows that actually a BMI of 25-30 (defined as “overweight”) leads to a LONGER life expectancy than that of people with “NORMAL” weight (BMI = 20-25). However, in the above blog you say “You might also want to try reducing weight…”. I guess this applies only to people with an even higher BMI (30+). Am I correct?

The thought of exercising in the sun, without smoking, then eating a lot, sounds good to me 🙂

DR Valter Longo’s new book is great, just bought it in Sydney. Turns out there are 2 age groups when it comes to protein and IGF-1 receptors and genes, here is a good video that explains it, he looks at Loran Syndrome very closely. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgo5-5f3Q-Q&t=124s Loran px get 0 Alzheimers, 0 cardiovascular and 0 cancer… is there an IGF-1 connection to HPA Hypothesis ? S

Thank you Eric for that link to the Guardian article. It is the best article published in the Guardian ( which is always part of the bad news avalanche ) in a decade !
I totally agree that the main effect is ‘rage’. And rage over time destroys us via CVD and heart attacks.

Went & wrote a comment at the end of this article in the Guardian. And took a quick look at a few of the other comments…Critical remarks were running at about 70% .. And soem folks were shouting ( caps locking) as well….

Ummm ! I got quickly out of there. Much to dangerous for mental & physical health.

I am sorry for going totally off-topic, but I had a wonderful day after Donald Trump was elected – not least because Hillary Clinton had promised to step up the war in Syria with a no-fly zone – bringing the west into direct confrontation with the Russians and causing yet more misery for the Syrians, who really need peace. As secretary of state, she had already brought war to Syria and Libya. There was a time when The Guardian would have recognised that she was a war monger.

David Bailey: We may be seeing some fireworks here pretty soon, when the DOJ Inspector General’s report is released on what appears to be the Obama administration illegally using the national security apparatus to spy on the Trump campaign. Stay tuned folks. May be a whole lot of fun!

I agree, I have been following the investigation of the DOJ and FBI very closely (in as much as that is possible, since much of the discussion is behind closed doors) – we may see a mass of illegality exposed before this is finished. I seriously wonder if in the aftermath, we might see a sobered media start to do its job again, which would involve actually investigating the various medical scandals, among many, many other things.

David Bailey: I’m afraid the media has shot itself in both feet and right between the eyes. They are broken beyond repair. Our salvation is the internet; on the other hand, the tech companies (such as Google) have become the new propagandists and censors. Fortunately, we have on our side (that is the side of truth, justice, and the American way) plenty of very bright and technically adept people who still have a moral compass. And we have Julian Assange to publicize the crimes of the elites. What frightens me most is medical totalitarianism, which is spreading like a cancer.

Randal, it’s an interesting link. It reports the results of research that shows the benefits of supplementing with vitamin D3. And then quotes an ‘expert’ who states that it’s all inconclusive. Duh ?
Classic argument from an ‘authority’. Classic dopiness !!

And, of course Vit C, taken as ascorbic acid as Dr Suzanne Humphries recommends.
Members of my family have had this awful UK chest infection with varying degrees of debility.
The UK climate is utterly dismal, lots of rain since summer. Even with good nutrition, we can succumb. How lucky, those of you in sunny climes. Have to say also, some of the vitamins are really expensive. I have bought from America, I – Herb or Vitacost, half the price, but have been copped by customs now so what to do.

Thank you. Mr Chris, just need to be careful about quality, not checked price at H and B.
The nutribiotic ascorbic acid was recommended by Dr Humphries and is a reasonable price in America for the 16 oz size, there must be a comparable one I guess in the UK. Will do some homework.

Andrew Saul said in https://youtu.be/W5Bgdqsorg0 that the cheaper vitamin C will work. It is as I understand it, ascorbic acid, that’s it, though you would think from some internet sources vitamin C is something better than ascorbic acid, and ascorbic acid is just an acid but not much good. Since Linus Pauling was awarded a Nobel prize for vitamin C work, and he thought it was ascorbic acid, then I think it’s ascorbic acid.

It’s a little confusing, because if you manufacture ascorbic acid using purely chemical means, you will end up with a 50/50 mix of the left- and right-handed isomers of ascorbic acid. Like many molecules, only the left-handed form is used by living creatures.

Apparently there is a biological step in the manufacturing process for ascorbic acid which ensures it is all the desired L- form. If is says “ascorbic acid” on the label is has to be all vitamin C by FDA regulations, I believe.

The D- form, erythorbic acid (aka isoascorbic acid, D-araboascorbic acid, D-erythroascorbic acid, D-erythro-3-keto-hexonic acid) is also manufactured in quantity for the food industry, but has to be labelled as “erythorbic acid”.

Martin Black, thank you for the explanation. It does raise error some people are making in thinking that eating processed food gives them plenty of vitamin C, but are not aware they are getting D-ascorbic acid. Would L-ascorbic acid be as good as a food preservative? Everything I buy is sold as L-ascorbic acid, is there a simple way of testing it?

AH,
If it says “ascorbic acid” or “vitamin C” on the label, then it is vitamin C.

If they have used D-ascorbic acid as a preservative, it should say “Preserved with erythorbic acid”. They are not permitted to call it “ascorbic acid” or “vitamin C” as far as I know.

Incidentally, while the term “organic” on a label is quite strictly controlled, so you can be reasonably certain you are getting organic matter, the term “natural” is undefined. So a “natural” product could be derived from plants or animals or a test tube, there is no regulation to control it. In any case, getting “natural” products out of plant matter and into a pill must require some fairly unnatural processes.

New study challenges current scientific consensus. Alzheimer’s disease: neuronal loss very limited. Our study therefore suggests that, contrary to what was believed, neuronal and synaptic loss is relatively limited in Alzheimer’s disease. This is a radical change in thinking,” explains El Mestikawy, an associate professor at McGill University. IMO, the study implicitly suggests that dementia is associated with a synaptic dysfunction rather than the disappearance of synapses from the patient’s cortex https://www.mcgill.ca/newsroom/channels/news/alzheimers-disease-neuronal-loss-very-limited-283921

Randal, as it happens Dennis Mangan has just published an interview with Dr Allen Green on the benefits of Rampamycin in preventing Alzheimers Disease on Rogue Health

Rampamycin is a drug prescribed for organ transplant patients and helps prevent rejection by suppressing the immune system. At those levels it has a number of side effects.

However Dr Green suggests that it be taken just once a week for prevention of Alheimers. He also suggets that people who have the APOE4 gene carriers are more likely to suffer from Alzheimers and other chronic diseases caused by chronic inflammation.

All in all this is a very interesting ( if technical ) discussion as it deals with the the differences between humans carrying different genes. For example there is at one point a mention that people who are APOE4 carriers should tailor their diet accordingly to a low carb one. While folks not carrying this gene are better off not going this route.

Thanks for the article, food for followup at the very least.
I didn’t catch the part that LC was not recommended for non-carriers, the relevant quote being “A sedentary lifestyle with overeating, eating large amount of red meat, overweight combined with moderate alcohol intake might be reasonably safe for non-E4 carriers; but very high risk for APOE4 carriers.”

Apparently, rapamycin blocks a specific pathway for carriers of that gene, but it does also lots of good things for non-carriers, such as lowering mTOR and increasing NO generation.

The thing I didn’t get is why carriers should avoid sat fat and red meat. No specific reasoning was given, so maybe he inferred this because according to conventional wisdom these foods are bad?

Also, maybe it is just me, but I tend to get suspicious when one substance is accredited with too many miraculous benefits at the same time.

I believe the reason is that ApOE4 V APOE2 and variants on the scale between the two effect how sat fat interplays with cholesterol metabolism. If you are APOE4 APOE4 and even APOE3 APOE4 you are more prone to high cholesterol and therefore sat fat is more likely to increase cholesterol levels (lets not get sidtracked by how bad that is). Bottom line seems to be that if you are APO4 ish then focus on Monosaturated fat in a low carb regime rather than sat fat

One theory I have which I may have mentioned on here before and is connected to this APOE4 hypothesis and sat fat and meat along with Dean Ornish is that perhaps, and I have no evidence of this, perhaps Ornish was by definition working with people predominantly APOE4/4or3/4 as they were people who already had heart disease (the two being connected) and as such his cohort were therefore going to respond more beneficially to zero sat’ fat and no meat.

Hi Eric,
The link I gave before was a transcript of an interview by Dennis Mangan with Dr Green. And so no sources were provided on this issue. However Dr Green has his own website dealing specifically with Rapamycin for preventing Azheimer’s disease here :https://alzheimer-prevention.com/

He provides lots of links to the science behind his assertions there. And maybe discusses the ‘science’ there of why ‘POE4 carriers should tailor their diet away from saturated fats;’.
I am still going through & reading his site it and have not got to this section but you could take a look as well.

PS I do not take rapamycin and have no experience with it.It is not available here in Oz via a regular medical prescription; only approved specialists can write scripts. However the role of increased MTOR expression in aging is very well established. There are other ways of reducing MTOR expression such as exercise and the traditional Chinese supplement Berberine…

Smartersig, I have read your comment about APOE4 carriers three times and I still have trouble understanding what you mean. My understanding from what Dr Green says, is that our genes we carry affect our ability to prevent chronic diseases such as AD, CVD, Strokes etc.
Dr Green simply states that APOE4 carriers should avoid saturated fats for this reason. But I have still not got to the ‘science’ sources that support this statement by him.. Still ploughing through his own website !https://alzheimer-prevention.com/

Hi Smartersig, I looked at the first link you provided. My understanding is that all the trial patients (54 veterans ) were APOE4 carriers. It supports what Dr Green is saying about APOE4 and saturated fats. However APOE4 carriers according to Wikipedia, constitute only 14% of the human population.
The second link you provided is far more tentative. Here is what it says in the conclusion :

“In this paper, we highlighted that people carrying at least one allele of APOE4 seems to have a deregulated fatty acid metabolism with emphasis on disrupted DHA homeostasis. To date, it is not clear how this could play a role in the risk of developing LOAD and/or CHD but it could involve the following processes.
A shift in fatty acid selection for β-oxidation where DHA becomes highly β-oxidized in APOE4 carriers whereas in the non-carriers, DHA is highly conserved.
In APOE4 carriers, brain uptake of DHA seems lower resulting in lower brain membrane DHA over time. This could play a role in neurotransmission and expression of genes and proteins involved in brain health but this needs further investigation.
APOE4 carriers respond differently than non-carriers to dietary interventions involving lipids such that modulating lipoprotein levels may include managing fatty acid circulating in the blood. Providing higher doses of LC omega-3 to this population could be necessary to obtain a similar response compared to the non-carriers supplemented with lower doses of LC omega-3.”

Again the emphasis is on the difference capacity of individuals with different APOE alleles to deal with saturated fat.

And unfortunately one key issue remains undiscussed. Does having a mix of 2 alleles make a difference ? A ‘double’ APOE4 supposedly is carried by 14% of people I think. But what percentage of people have a mix of APOE4 with either APOE2 or APOE3. And does this have an impact on Alzheimer’s disease ?

It depends how we read it Bill, I am reading ‘APOE4 carriers’ to mean one or two alleles although I agree it would help if they specifically stated this. I will do a bit more reading around to see if this can be nailed down. In the meantime as a 3/4 person I tend to avoid sat fat simply because its another one of those grey areas. It might not be of any harm but why take the risk when I dont need to consume it in any large quantities.

When we rarely fry anything we use coconut oil. I eat a fair bit of fish so hopefully plenty of omega 3. Over here we have a avocado tree so this time of year plenty of Mono’. I only occassionaly eat eggs, maybe one a month on average. I dont eat red meat and occassionally chicken and turkey when cornered. The od occasion I need to use a spread eg mackrel on toast I will use butter (kerrygold) but again this might be once per week. A typical day for me is
Porridge with fruit
Grapefuit
Hibiscus tea
————–
Veg soup
Some sort of salad from Pret a Manger
Dark choc’
————————–
Salmon
Sweet Potato
Tomato/onion salad

I may be altering the breakfast in light of my ongoing blood experiment
Looking at the above I guess I am low on sat fat

smartersig: It appears from this menu that you eat both a low fat and low protein diet. If you do well on it, more power to you, but I would starve to death eating this way. I advise eating some nuts from time to time, for the minerals and the l-arginine.

I forgot to mention that I take a handful of walnuts with my breakfast and I put flaxseed containing coq10 and ground nuts in it on my porridge. I know what you mean about starving but when you lower the simple carbs the desire to eat or snack simply go’s away. I went from 14st to 11st 7lbs in 3 months

There is this added discussion on the Roguehealth post about preventing Azhaimers with Rapamycin :
” I wonder if Rampamycin also reverses CVD as well. Any thoughts on this ?”
Reply
Dr. Alan green says January 21, 2018
“Hi Bill,.Rapamycin in animal lab studies prevents atherosclerosis and prevents destabilization of plaque which causing acute MI. Also rapamycin helps prevent age-related deterioration of heart muscle.
The Matt Kaeberline companion dog study noted here showed 3 months on rapamycin and old dogs had improved cardiac output on echocardiogram and owners report old dogs running around with much more energy. I would rank protecting heart and protecting brain from age-related decline two main reasons. Preventing AD in APOE4 carriers just a special reason in high risk group.
All the age-related diseases are closely related on molecular level which is why all happen in same age group.”
Dr. Kendrick, do you have any experience with Rapamycin and use in this way ?

At reading Dennis Mangan’s interview with Dr Green I started wondering about the APOE gene and what percentage of people have the various forms. So I looked in Wikipedia. There are apparently 3 forms of the APOE gene in humans. And becasue of our genetic inheritance from our parents, each of us can have one of the following combinations of these three forms. E2 & E2; or E2 & E3; or E2 & E4; or E3 & E3; E3 & E4; or E4 & E4.
( Have I missed any combination ? )
Wikipedia says ( abbreviating ) that although these forms differ from each other by only one or two amino acids at positions,…these differences alter APOE structure and function. These have physiological consequences:

Also, APOE2 has an allele frequency of approximately 7 percent in the human population. This variant of the apoprotein binds poorly to cell surface receptors while E3 and E4 bind well. APOE2 is associated with both increased and decreased risk for atherosclerosis. ( This needs explaining and I found none at all. Perplexing )

Also ‘Individuals with an E2/E2 combination may clear dietary fat slowly and be at greater risk for early vascular disease and the genetic disorder type III hyperlipoproteinemia..”
APOE3 has an allele frequency of approximately 79 percent & It is considered the “neutral” Apo E genotype.

A notable advantage of the APOE4 compared to APOE2 and APOE3, is a ‘positive association with higher levels of vitamin D’ which may help explain its prevalence despite its seeming complicity in various diseases or disorders.

I have simplified what Wikipedia says somewhat to make it more compreensible. But all in all, this sounds pretty interesting !

The focus in this blog is CVD. And most of us are in more mature age group. Why ? Because CVD seems to mostly afflict older folk. That raises this question, “Are CVD and the other chronic diseases of the elderly, ( like osteoporosis, stroke, cancer ) the result of an internal aging program built into our genetic structure ?”

For years Josh Mitteldorf has examined exactly this question. And in 2016 he published his book “Cracking the Aging Code, the new science of growing old and what it means for staying young”. I bought thehardback when it was published. I warmly recommend it to anyone here interested in this wider question.
And it is now available as a cheap kindle edition under the title ” What Good is Death:

Sat down to read at 12.10pm on page 5 or 6 the book mentions the use of sugar and glucose via the Krebs Cycle. 12.20pm Krebs Cycle wins the 12.20 at Lingfield at 8/1. This time next year we will all be millionaires. 🙂

Bill in Soz: Nick Lane’s books ‘Power, Sex, Suicide (2009)’ and ‘The Vital Question (2015)’ deal interestingly with the question of lifespan vs species. Turns out that humans and flying animals are at the top end of the scale for longevity vs body size. The key seems to be innate (genetically determined) aerobic capacity vs reproductive strategy. Mitochondrial health.

Rats for example get old and wither much, much faster.

Martin B: the first question that popped into my head was, apart from the good Dr. himself, are there any young people in your heavy posters list? Are there any young people here at all? Note, I am compressing my response in the attempt to avoid commenting much about people who comment about comments.

Smartersig: you should test glucose levels from the rice together with the lipids you use to prepare the whole rice meals if you want a meaningful result.

I have just read Dr Valter Longo’s new book. The IGF-1 receptor is a fascinating link to understanding aging/chronic diseases … Here is Dr Longo demonstrating his work and new book and looks at Loran syndrome. I have asked Dr K if HPA axis theory could have an IGF-1 link ie do stress hormones affect IGF-1 receptors? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgo5-5f3Q-Q&t=124s